


Summer in your pocket

by iridescentjaebum



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Humor, M/M, because jinyoung fucks up very badly, but that results in a few nice things, by now jinson is definitely a sidepair, maybe a little bit of angst too, so all is well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-09-13
Packaged: 2018-11-19 11:42:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 39,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11312670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iridescentjaebum/pseuds/iridescentjaebum
Summary: "You know," Mark says, and Jaebum feels his breathing on his neck as they're facing each other, heart skipping a beat - maybe because of that, or maybe because of the fact they're both lying on a cold wet grass on ungodly hours of night watching the stars. "They say that if you look at the moon for too long, it might drive you insane."Jaebum only laughs at that; for a second it sounds ridiculous, but at the same moment he realizes that if this holds even a little bit of truth, he might as well call Mark Tuan his own personal moon.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, it is i, i am back. With fluff, yes, tables have turned. we all need markbum fluff, period.  
> i hope you all will like this, because i'm still ???? at it, much like with every fluff of mine, but yeah. hopefully, it's gonna be at least a bit enjoyable, haha

“I’m— I probably mixed up the classrooms?”

Mark is about to fall asleep, comfortably resting his head against a wooden surface of a desk, when a low voice coming from somewhere very near suddenly shoos all the sleepiness away, making him blink a few times to get used to the yellowish lightning of the room.

It’s quite a late evening already, all the lectures are already over and Mark, being a good friend he is, agreed to help Jinyoung with his term paper for cognitive psychology class, which the guy is clearly failing – asking an economics major for help is the first indicator of that, even though Jinyoung didn’t really specify what kind of help that’s going to be.

“Depends on what you’re searching for.” Mark replies, looking at the guy.

“My friend asked me for some help with his term paper and told me to meet him here, but I either mixed something up, or—“ He starts, quite unsure of what’s going on, because Jinyoung _definitely_ said him to meet him here; however Mark lightheartedly cuts him off with a laugh before even finishing the sentence.

“If that friend is named Jinyoung, then yes, you’re in the right place. And yes, he’s late, but if you’re his close friend, you shouldn’t be surprised.”

The guy responds with a slight smile, which feels somehow awkward but still friendly, then finally comes into the classroom and occupies a desk that’s a bit to the right from where Mark is sitting, almost next to the door.

They don’t talk and the silence is awkward, it’s quite evident that they’re both feeling uncomfortable from the way Jinyoung’s friend is tapping the surface of his desk and trying to avoid any possible eye contact; Mark does the same, pretending he’s scrolling down his phone, but honestly, if he sees Naver’s logo one more time in his phone he’s going to throw up. A thought creeps into his head – _what is it all about? Why Jinyoung needs two people for his assignment?_

“So… Did Jinyoung tell you what’s going on?” The guy finally speaks up as if he’s read Mark’s thoughts. His voice shakes a bit from shyness; slightly and barely noticeably, but Mark still doesn’t fail to catch it, however, doesn’t bring it up, just shakes his head in response.

“I was going to ask you the same, but now I assume you know about this as much as I do. He just mentioned his term paper and begged me to help him.” He answers and a few seconds later they fall back to the awkward silence once again, until Mark musters up all his courage to ask, “What’s your name? If you don’t mind me asking, of course, we’re going to be stuck here for a while and I thought I— We should—“

From the way Mark stutters and the redness of his cheeks, the guy sighs in obvious relief, finally realizing that he’s not the only one feeling uncomfortable in this situation, where Jinyoung didn’t even bother to mention other people helping out with the assignment. He flashes a small smile, “Im Jaebum, you?”

“Mark Tuan. Which year are you in?”

“Third, you?”

“Same. Major?”

“Accounting, yours?”

“Economics.”

The short-lived conversation is painfully awkward, as none of them are good at small talk; Mark feels the embarrassment tingling in his fingertips and to shoo that thought away he starts thinking where the hell is Jinyoung, because he’s twenty minutes late. However, as soon as he takes his phone to text his friend, the said guy finally runs into the class, silently muttering curses at the cup of coffee he’s holding, its contents spilling over and scalding his fingers thanks to all the running.

“Sorry, buying coffee took me longer than I expected, the line was freaking _huge_.” Jinyoung mumbles, not even sparing a glance at two unfortunate people stuck together against their will. Mark and Jaebum don’t look at each other at all, but they still roll their eyes at the excuse almost synchronically. Finally, while searching for something in his backpack, Jinyoung lifts his eyes at both of his friends. “Why are you so silent?”

“We didn’t know that other people will be involved and we don’t really know each other, and on top of that, we still don’t know what the fuck is going on?” Jaebum offers his insight first, before Mark even thinks of opening his mouth, but he just vigorously nods at that, agreeing.

Jinyoung tries to smile, but wholeheartedly fails, crushed by all of his deadlines and reports he has to write, dark circles under his eyes looking straight up creepy. “Well today is your lucky day then, because you’ll get to know each other more than you probably want.”

Mark tilts his head at this statement. He’s not necessarily against meeting new people and Jaebum doesn’t seem like a terrible person, well, at least from the first sight and a sneaky glimpse at his phone, which has a cat photo as a wallpaper; but still, a Friday evening where he could go to a party to let off some steam before the semester ends, or where he could head straight to his dorm room and finish his own last assignment sounds like so much better idea.

Jaebum seems to agree with Mark’s internal monologue, because he crosses arms on his chest with a sigh and asks, “What about your paper or whatever we’re supposed to help you with? Searching for new friends doesn’t seem like a great idea when you have a deadline.”

“This, my friends,” Jinyoung rolls his eyes, as if offended that they still don’t get it, even if he’s not giving any explanations at all, “ _Is_ my paper. You both are my paper, you both getting to know each other is my assignment.”

“ _What_?” This time, Jaebum and Mark start talking at the same time, which in the end amuses them, because they turn to each with slight and shy smiles.

Jinyoung, however, doesn’t bother to reply anymore, not until he finds some papers in his backpack, wrinkled and stained with something, probably either some energy drink or tears of a student failing half of his courses. He puts them on Jaebum’s desk, accompanied by a voice recorder and a music player, what confuses the two guys even more.

“I need to make a research on people interactions and emotions they feel during meeting a new person, all that shit.” Jinyoung tells. “This is going to be a simple interview, you can take the answers out of your asses, I don’t care, I just need a passing grade from this class. The papers have questions, so you just have to read them out loud and answer it to each other, that’s why I said you’re getting to know each other today. I’d stay to listen and record everything myself, but I have another paper to write, so please, record your answers and Jaebum will give it back to me later, okay? I’ll probably will be pulling an allnighter in the library, if you need me.”

Jaebum wants to protest about being the one who will need to search for Jinyoung later, but they don’t even have the time to think about anything, because the latter gathers his things and leaves almost in the speed of light, Mark barely makes it to catch him and ask, “What’s the music player for?”

“There’s some question about music, I don’t know, I didn’t read the questions properly myself!” The answer echoes in the corridor and Mark sighs, knowing that he probably shouldn’t have agreed to this, because this whole thing seems ridiculous, but he still has hopes that Jinyoung knows what he’s doing. He’s been majoring in psychology for two years already, definitely, he must know what he’s doing.

_What a joke, they all will think, approximately five months later._

“I guess, the earlier we start, the earlier we’ll be done with this.” Jaebum says once Mark returns to the classroom.

“I guess.” Mark shrugs, plopping back into his seat. “You might want push the desks together or something, it will be more comfortable to talk like that.”

Jaebum feels a bit too lazy for that, so he simply turns around a chair belonging to the desk in front of Mark and sits there, taking the sheets of paper to skim through the questions. “Thirty-six of them? Did he go nuts completely, I don’t have the entire evening.” He mumbles, pushing the questions forward so Mark would get a glimpse at them too.

“Let’s just do it and get over it. I read one question, we both answer and then you read one till we finish. Does this sound good enough?” Mark asks and Jaebum nods, pressing the recording button of the voice recorder, feeling a little bit shy again. “Before making a phone call— Wait, what are these even about? Okay, nevermind. Before making a phone call, do you ever rehearse what are you going to say? Why?”

Jaebum doesn’t have to think long before answering – at first he nods his head, but then remembers that only his voice is recorded, so he laughs a bit at his stupidity and then says, “Yeah. Well, depends on whom I’m calling. If it’s not my friends then yeah, most of the times I do think of what I’m going to say.”

“Same. But sometimes I just, I don’t know… Feel a fear that someone won’t stick to the scenario I planned in my head and I’ll make a fool of myself?” Mark responds, feeling a bit weird saying such things to a complete stranger. But whatever earns Jinyoung his grade. “Sometimes I even force my roommate to make calls for me, even though I’m two years older.”

Jaebum understandingly nods, quite relating to what Mark is saying, and the “interview” is going smoothly like that, answers to the first set of questions flowing seemingly easy; but both of the guys don’t fail to notice that for some reason questions are getting more and more personal.

“What roles do love and affection play in your life?” Jaebum reads out loud, stumbling on the words a bit, because it’s definitely uncomfortable for him to answer such things even to the closest friends, let alone to an unfamiliar dude, whom he doesn’t even know anything about asides the fact that he’s Jinyoung’s friend.

Mark has to think for a moment, not sure how to put it in words, and what words to choose overall, but after a while he tells, “I think…” Then he makes another pause, suddenly feeling like it’s hard to talk for some reason; it happens all the time when he needs to speak about his emotions. “I think that love is really important to me? I’m not talking about romantic relationships only, like, it’s not the end of the world if I don’t find a date for a week or two, but… To love someone is… fun to me? You care about them, spoil them and wish them all the best, and it makes you feel good as well? Affection is nice, too, though I don’t think I’m really that affectionate.”

Jaebum is listening to the answer concentrating on every word, at the same time dreading every second that is making his answer come sooner and sooner, because he has no idea what to say; for a second he even thinks that he should use Jinyoung’s advice and just take the answer out of his ass and lie about it. But on the other hand, he doesn’t want to – the entire conversation so far was based on nothing but honesty, and Jaebum can see that Mark is absolutely honest right now too, so when the guy stops talking, he takes a deep breath, ready for whatever is going to come.

“In all honesty, I don’t think I’m a person to prioritize love?” Jaebum says, and his words immediately earn an eyebrow raise from Mark, who’s waiting for an elaboration of some sorts. “I mean, love is important to me too, but— Okay, let’s put it like this. I’m not the type to think that I can love freely only after I earn a fortune, build a house and have a decent career, until I realize that I’m eighty with no one around me, not at all. It’s just that I don’t think it’s the most important thing if there’s something else to focus on, if that makes sense. If I’m determined to make a career, I focus on that. If I’m building a house, I focus on that. If loves comes somewhere in between doing that, great, but that’s not my main goal. And I kind of suck at showing affection, so there’s that as well.” He finishes his long ramble with a self-deprecating laugh, but Mark’s eyes are looking at him somehow friendly, not judging him at all.

“That does make sense, as long as you’re not a person who scares all the people off, just because you don’t like being in love or whatever. We’re all free to prioritize things however we want, I guess.”

Jaebum gratefully nods - it’s probably the first time he’s not being laughed at for his totally non-traditional views. “Okay, let’s move on. Twenty-seventh, if you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for them to know.”

Mark laughs at the question, since it’s quite a turn from the perception of love to being simply close friends, but he goes along with it, the thought that the questions will end soon driving them both forward. “I sleeptalk in three languages and that scares the shit out people who sleep at my place. I’m allergic to bee stings. Also I think that “La La Land” was overrated as hell.”

Jaebum’s facial expression turns into one of complete terror and disbelief. “Oh hell no, I’m not befriending you, never. How dare you to say it’s overrated, I _cried_ at the ending.” He bites his tongue for spilling too much information, but Mark only rolls his eyes, ready to argue about all the plot holes in the script. _Who the fuck takes tap shoes out of a purse like it’s no big deal?_ But Jaebum tells him to shut up, because he’s feeling like having a heart attack due to this disrespect. “Anyway, let’s continue, _hater_. Okay, me crying during movies can count as the first thing. Second, I really, really dislike small kids and feel anxious around them. Third… My sense of humor is borderline mean, so you should always remember I don’t mean it that way, and if I’m insulting you – I like you a lot.”

“Saying that this movie is good is enough of an insult already, thank you.” Mark takes a playful jab at Jaebum before moving onto the remaining questions. “We’re nearing the end, thank god. Tell your partner something you like about them already.”

_Oh._

Everything’s back to the square one of awkwardness in the speed of light, and Mark remembers Jaebum saying that he’s not good at things like that, so he gets quite surprised when the answer comes so easily specific. “I like the way you laugh. It sounds a little bit restrained, as if you’d be doubting whether you can be fully comfortable around me, but it still sounds somehow natural and genuine—“ Suddenly, he shuts up, lowering his head in embarrassment. “Oh my god, this sounds so weird, forget it and let’s finish it up, so I can run back home and beat myself over this for the rest of the night.”

Mark has to bite his cheek in order not to burst out laughing, because a flustered Im Jaebum is quite a sight, but instead of bringing it up, he tells, “I like your straightforwardness. It saves people from misunderstandings.”

“You wouldn’t believe how much more trouble it actually brings.” Jaebum says under his breath, happy that the guy doesn’t mention his previous embarrassment. “Okay, finally, the last one and we’re done. Play the song in the music player and try to maintain an eye contact with your partner for four minutes. Well… that’s going to be awkward.”

This time Mark doesn’t laugh anymore, just breathes out, thinking that four more minutes and he’ll be good to get rid of this weird atmosphere. They take the earphones Jinyoung kindly left them with the music player, one earphone each and Jaebum presses the play button as their eyes lock for what seems longer than an eternity.

The song is in English and Mark is the only one to fully understand the lyrics; it’s something about falling in and out of love; Jaebum’s stare is sharp and borderline uncomfortable, because Mark was never good at handling eye contact, so he allows himself to wander off the rules a bit – it’s not like Jinyoung will ever know, anyway – and his eyes focus on Jaebum’s face in general.

Mark sees two twin moles above the guy’s left eye, peeking through the mop of brown hair every time Jaebum moves his head a bit; his features are as sharp as his stare, but that’s somehow attractive even, your true cold city guy, like people would say.

Jaebum doesn’t miss the chance to avoid eye contact either. It feels weird having to stare at each other while listening to some song, which is not even that good, but it’s probably not the worst thing Jinyoung could’ve made them do. Mark’s cute, Jaebum decides; his face is softer and somewhat friendlier, with a few laugh lines etched near his eye corners.

The songs ends exactly on the four minute mark and they both sigh in relief, being officially able to turn their eyes away, taking the earphones out and leaning back on their chairs, for some reason kind of tired. Speaking drains, they decide.

 

While Mark and Jaebum are suffering through the assignment of Jinyoung’s, the latter is buried under textbooks and coffee cups in the library, one hand typing an essay he’s supposed to turn in till midnight, another one is texting one of his friends to count him in into the party once he’s done with deadlines, and Jackson creeps on him from behind, grabbing his shoulders in attempt to scare the shit out of him. Needless to say, he succeeds.

“Fuck you.” Jinyoung whispers, trying to pick up a book he dropped on the ground. “I’m trying to write an essay here, thank you for the concern.”

Jackson only laughs at that, laugh a bit too loud and earning some side-eyes from other unfortunate people who are bound to spend their Friday evening here, but he doesn’t really care, saying only, “I have to return a book to Jaebum before he kills me, I assumed he’d be somewhere around you, but I was clearly wrong.”

“He’s helping me with another assignment, so you can leave it to me, I’ll give it back to him once he’s done.”

Jackson gets a little weirded out. “Helping you _where_ exactly, because unless he suddenly realized he can turn into a ghost, I don’t think he’s here to help you.”

“He’s in one of the classrooms in the first floor, doing an interview with one of my other friends.” Jinyoung explains.

Jackson only shrugs at that, because this whole scheme seems weird to him, but whatever sails their boats, he decides, proceeding to one of his most favorite activities – checking what’s in Jinyoung’s backpack, since he has no feel of a private space, and then takes out a few papers.

“What’s this?” He asks, a bit incredulously.

Jinyoung takes a short glimpse before returning to the keyboard. “A copy of the questions for the interview Jaebum should now be busy doing, why?”

“36 questions to fall in love, really? Is that even an acceptable topic for a research in psychology department nowadays?” Jackson is still very confused about this, and now Jinyoung is too, looking at him with a questioning stare.

“36 questions of _what_?”

Jackson rubs the nape of his neck, looking at the papers. “I don’t know, man, sounds awfully a lot like those questions, I think there was a music video based on this study, or whatever.”

Jinyoung continues to stare at him with raised eyebrows. “The assignment task was just to conduct an interview with two people, I literally just went with a google search of “questions to ask”, entering a random number to narrow the search down. It happened to be 36, what love are you talking about?”

Jackson for a second thinks about it, then pushes his friend from his laptop a bit, typing “36 questions to ask” into the search bar and he’s right, dragging his finger across the first headline that says “The 36 Questions That Lead To Love”, which, upon a simple mouse click, turn out to be identical to Jinyoung’s.

“Okay, maybe I didn’t read the headline properly and those questions are really that, what’s the big deal?” Jinyoung retorts, not quite sure what’s the big fuss about. “Don’t tell me you really believe they’re going to fall in love with each other, for Christ’s sake.”

“The stats are pretty self-explanatory, dude. The scientist who came up with this had two of his participants married after six months.”

“Bullshit.” Jinyoung concludes, returning to his laptop. “Now if you excuse me, I _really_ need to have this essay done in three hours.”

 

“It was nice to meet you.” Mark says, closing the classroom door shut, Jaebum apparently having a key to lock them and carrying the voice recorder and the music player, since he’s the one who has to bring it all back to Jinyoung. “Weird and awkward, but… Nice.”

“Yeah, same.” Jaebum answers with a smile playing on his lips, finally feeling somehow comfortable around the guy. “We should catch up some time later, you know, when Jinyoung will get an A thanks to us and be treating us to dinner or something.”

Mark agrees with that laughing and saying that he needs to go, because his own deadlines are killing him and Jaebum waves him off, sweaterpaws made out of his hoodie, since it’s quite chilly – winter is already approaching.

They wish each other good luck with finals and happy holidays in advance, both certain that they probably won’t meet anytime soon, if at all, considering that their faculties are on different sides of the campus and Jaebum doesn’t live in the dorm.

They both feel weird though – Mark’s cheeks are about to tear apart from how hard he’s smiling saying his goodbyes for the third time already. Jaebum, at the same time, can’t get his eyes off Mark’s back, seeing him getting further and further away and eventually exiting the corridor.

He’s leaning against the wall of the said corridor, thinking what the heck has gotten into him, however, looking through the windows of the corridor as he’s heading to the library to tell Jinyoung that he owes him half of his future diploma, Jaebum decides to put the blame on the full moon shining so brightly in the clear sky.

Full moon gets everyone feeling weird, he thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the [music video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHhkd2B87Q8) jackson was talking about with jinyoung.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this mess, you know the drill already, excuse the typos and comments are always welcomed <3


	2. Chapter 2

“Park Jinyoung?”

“Here.” Mark responds lifting his hand, though an old professor doesn’t even bother to search who said that and where the person sits, quickly scribbling a plus next to Jinyoung’s name and proceeding with attendance check.

Some students, most probably Jinyoung’s acquaintances or friends, give Mark a few curious glares, because they really don’t remember Park Jinyoung looking like that; luckily, no one says anything, and Mark, finally hearing another person’s name being called, rests his head on his arms, zoning himself out for upcoming two hours.

Actually, he’s not really supposed to be in this classroom, not in the astronomy class on a late Friday afternoon when his own schedule is clear of classes that day. It’s just Jinyoung, finishing his second year thanks to some miracle and starting his third just as messily, not changing at all – apparently, he’s busy with something, and Mark that morning got only a pleading message from him, not even a call, asking to go here and cross his name out of the student list, because he’s not planning to take this course anymore.

It was supposed to be an easy three minute job, five at most; but this particular professor decided to do him dirty, telling that they can drop out only after the class ends. And that’s how Mark ends up staying, already half-asleep eight minutes into listening about stars and constellations. It would sound quite romantic, nice and all that cool stuff, if he didn’t feel bored to death, the clock on a wall seemingly not moving at all.

Winter holidays passed incredibly quickly for him, it seemed like he just got off the plane in LA in the middle of December, parents hugging him and siblings nagging about not bringing any cool presents, even though Mark has no idea what to bring them anymore, not when he’s coming back literally every four or five months. He forgot about Jinyoung’s assignment as soon as the semester finally ended, the younger guy getting a solid A- because of some mistakes in formatting; Jaebum was also put somewhere in the back of his memory. But then it felt like Mark just blinked and it was time to board a plane again, to return to the chilly and biting early spring of Seoul.

Mark finally snaps out of his memories and half-sleeping state when he hears the professor explaining the homework assignment, lifting his eyes full of hope that she will let them go home as soon as she’s done with that, considering that half of the classroom is barely awake and the other half are stuck to their phones, not listening anyway.

The assignment doesn’t sound difficult at all – they have to pair up with someone and write a twenty page long paper about an astronomical object of their choice, ten pages per person; it’s not the worst thing they’ve ever heard, even though Mark doesn’t really care – he won’t need to do it anyway. Unfortunately, the professor doesn’t feed their hopes about going home early, saying, “Let’s have short break and then we’ll continue.”

Someone, probably sharing quite a similar destiny as Mark, asks if they can just sign that they’re dropping out and call it a day, but the teacher strictly shakes her head saying that they will be able to do that after class as planned, and Mark sighs, taking his earphones while others are getting outside to find a bathroom or a place to smoke.

Mark expects to be doomed to another hour of torture alone, because he has no friends who would’ve signed up for this, so he plants his face on the desk, with loud music blasting from his earphones in attempt to drown his misery; however, a few seconds into it, he feels something hitting his neck.

It feels like a ball of paper, and he’s not wrong, looking at the bundle of a few pages of a notebook ending up on his desk. Mark turns around to search for the culprit, maybe some obnoxious first year student, who thought it’s going to be fun to mess with a senior, or something, but it’s none of that – it’s Im Jaebum, whom he was on the verge of totally forgetting, sitting a few rows behind him with a wide smile on his lips.

Mark takes his earphones out, as Jaebum waves to him and he waves back; it takes approximately a blink to have the guy picking his stuff up and moving into an unoccupied seat next to him. Mark tries to think of a reason why he didn’t hear Jaebum’s name during the attendance check, but then he decides that he just wasn’t listening; the guy’s last name was way further down the list than Jinyoung’s.

“Didn’t know that you suddenly changed your entire face, _Jinyoung_.” Jaebum doesn’t miss the opportunity to make fun of the absurd situation and Mark only rolls his eyes at that. “How’s it going?”

“Suffering in astronomy class instead of an asshole friend, when I could be taking a nap in the dorm, life’s wonderful.” He answers and Jaebum laughs even more; deep in their hearts, they’re a bit surprised that it’s easy to talk, like they wouldn’t be almost strangers, the awkwardness that surrounded them two months ago long gone. “Anyway, since when you’re into stars and all that stuff?”

Jaebum shakes his head. “I’m not. I just had a few extra credits I need to use and was away for the most of winter vacation, so I asked Jinyoung to register me for electives, which probably was a mistake. The fact that he said his ass will also take it gave me some hope though, but since he’s absent the very first day, I feel like I’m doomed. You’re the only person I know here, so it might be only _slightly_ terrible.”

“Uhh… I’m not attending this one.” Mark feels kind of bad to break Jaebum’s hopes, as he lets out a guilty smile. “I’m here just to fake Jinyoung’s signature on the drop out list, he said he has conflicting schedules or something.”

The realization that he’s left on his own thanks to Jinyoung changing his mind the last minute dawns on Jaebum and it’s obvious that he’s a bit upset, even if he’s smiling; the main reason probably being the fact that if he doesn’t find a partner for the homework task, he’ll need to write all the twenty pages by himself. Mark feels slightly apologetic, because he knows more than anyone that Jinyoung can be quite an ass sometimes with antics like that. There’s no time to say anything though, the break comes to an end and the professor turns on the slides again.

The class, Mark included, falls asleep in five minutes.

Jaebum is diligent in making notes, Mark decides while side-eyeing the guy, seeing some sentences about solar system (probably, because his handwriting is kind of tough to read, as Jaebum doesn’t bother to make it look neat). Then he notices that asides the lecture material, the margins are full of doodles, and Mark can swear one of them is Jaebum strangling Jinyoung. He lets out a chuckle against his will, unsuccessfully trying to disguise it as a cough in attempt to avoid a hawk-like stare coming from the professor, and Jaebum only smiles at that, quickly hiding the doodle under some quickly scribbled lines.

The class finally ends after another torturous forty-five minutes during which Mark is on the verge of starting to hit his head into the surface of the desk and Jaebum is plainly staring at his notes with a blank stare; students are in such a rush to leave the classroom, it might seem like there’s a mass evacuation going on. Only those, who are approaching the professor to drop out of the course, stay, and Mark is not an exception.

Jaebum keeps him company for a while, they talk about a few insignificant things while Mark is waiting in an actual _line_ , because more than ten people are convinced that astronomy isn’t for them. Only when Mark stops trying his best to fake Jinyoung’s signature and just scribbles a few barely readable lines instead, because no one will really check anyway, Jaebum waves him goodbye as he’s heading to catch a subway home.

Mark still feels weirdly guilty about Jinyoung leaving a friend like that, even though he doesn’t know where this feeling is coming from, maybe from his urge to help people, and he doesn’t really think things through, but it’s too late to take words back after he suddenly says, “Jaebum?”

Jaebum, by that time already near the door of the classroom, turns around slightly confused. “Yeah?”

“Still need a partner for that assignment?”

The guy frowns, having no clue what’s going on. “I do, but—“

“Then you should know that we’re going to share the work equally from A to Z, and that I’ll need you to borrow me your notes of today’s class. And that we’re probably going to end up skipping classes and doing this the last night anyway.”

“You’re not even enrolled into this course, what are you—“

“Let’s fix this, shall we.” Mark only flashes a smile to dumbfounded Jaebum and goes back to the professor, who’s already getting ready to leave the classroom as well, not looking very happy seeing Mark approaching her. “Excuse me… I’d like to sign up for this class.”

The teacher frowns, as something doesn’t add up in her mind. “Didn’t you just drop out, what was your name again, Jinyoung?” Mark doesn’t respond to that, just keeps looking at her very persistently, and eventually she figures out what’s going on – in the end, Jinyoung and Mark’s plan isn’t the first one, and definitely won’t be the last she sees during all the years she'll spend working with students. So she sighs, taking the student list out of her bag again for Mark to write his name and student ID down. “I’ll keep an eye on your attendance, kid.”

Mark tries to make her swoon by flashing another smile, but it doesn’t work, as she only ushers him out of the classroom, asking whether he doesn’t have anything better do to this afternoon. Jaebum is waiting for him in the corridor, still being very confused about this twist of events. “Why did you do this? I saw you literally falling asleep two times and it’s not even a morning class, you’re not going to survive the whole semester.”

Mark only shrugs, mostly because he’s not sure about the reason himself. _It just felt right._ “Well, since Jinyoung is an ass, one of his friends has to save the situation, I guess.” He responds with a laugh.

They’re not really furious at Jinyoung ditching the class, this has happened countless times before, but it’s still fun to roast him while his sassy self isn’t around to fight back – a healthy, normal relationship of twenty-something year old college friends.

“Well shit.” Jaebum exclaims, when they reach the first floor of the building, the rain that’s pouring outside in streaks finally grabbing their attention. “It seems like today is just not my day.”

Mark could argue with that, to be honest, feeling like Jaebum’s personal savior, taking an umbrella out of his backpack and handing it to the younger guy. “You can return it either through Jinyoung, or next week during the class.”

“You won’t even reach your room without getting drenched.” Jaebum protests, feeling guilty for Mark having to save his ass in every step he takes today. “I don’t want to be held responsible if you catch a cold.”

“Which subway station are you heading to, then, because same?” Mark mentally questions himself why on earth he can’t stop smiling as if he would be participating in a toothpaste commercial. “I will walk you to the station and then go back to the dorm, everyone wins.”

Jaebum tells him the nearest station he can think of, thinking that an extra few hundred wons he’ll spend for transfers to the right one won’t hurt him much, only if he won’t be keeping Mark up because of his lack of luck today; and off they go, trying to fit under Mark’s umbrella, shoulders brushing against each other’s.

They talk about some things, your usual _“I don’t really know you, but not talking feels kind of awkward, so let’s fill the silence with something”_ talks; they discuss their schedules, gossip about professors and share the stories from their winter holidays.

“You’re from Los Angeles?” Jaebum asks a bit surprised.

“Yeah, I think I mentioned this when we did that interview thing for Jinyoung.” There it is, the questions being mentioned out loud for the first time since December. However, they have no idea what really happened that evening, so they don’t dwell on it for long. “Anyway, it’s not that big of a deal, just Christmas with no snow and too much food.”

Jaebum grins. “I don’t know what’s worse, no snow at all or the snowstorm we had here. I didn’t celebrate Christmas this year though.”

“Why?”

“Christmas here isn’t really a family holiday, you know. And since I don’t have a person to take out on dates, most of my holidays were spent volunteering in an animal shelter.”

The idea of Jaebum taking dogs for a walk or carrying cats around feels somehow warm and cute in Mark’s head, but he doesn’t have any time to voice it out or tease the guy about it, since they finally reach the subway station. Mark could’ve waved Jaebum off when they reached the entrance, but he accompanies his newly found friend until they reach the ticket gate and waits till Jaebum finds his subway card.

“Have a good weekend.” The latter says before disappearing in the mass of people, rushing to catch the train which is supposed to reach the station in three minutes.

“You too.”

When Jaebum is gone, Mark stays still for a moment, not really knowing why he feels a little bit weird; but maybe that feeling somewhere inside him only tells him that he’s hungry, since he skipped the breakfast and didn’t have the chance to grab something for lunch yet.

 

“I got your email that you wanted to see me?” Jinyoung asks after sitting down on a chair in his cognitive psychology professor’s office. He’s confused about the letter, because it’s been two months since he last saw his teacher and doesn’t have any more classes with him.

“Yes, yes.” Professor Yang looks at him and goes through a mess of papers on his desk in search for somethings. A few moments later Jinyoung sees a term paper in front of himself, the same one he wrote literally the last night before the deadline, cursing the shit out of Jaebum and Mark, because the recording was more than two hours long. “I wanted to talk to you about the paper you wrote for my class last semester.”

Jinyoung nervously fidgets in his seat, because he’s unsure of what’s going on – the paper was graded months ago and if anyone had any questions about it, they would’ve asked it back in December. But he keeps quiet, waiting for how the events will unfold.

“What you wrote about,” professor Yang says, “Is quite an old study that is constantly gathering some attention from people in our field.”

Jinyoung remembers Jackson talking some nonsense about those interview questions, something about that they are supposed to lead two strangers to falling in love, but he still doesn’t say anything, just politely nods his head.

“I know that all third year psychology majors have another term paper in the second semester.” The professor says. “And I wanted you to expand your study on this topic. We thought it would be interesting to see the outcome. Only if you want, of course, but I think we could agree on a slightly less strict grading if you do this.”

“What do you mean by expanding it, professor?”

The professor smiles at him. “Nothing much, don’t worry, I understand you have other classes to study for. Just a more in-depth take on how the people you mentioned in your paper interact with each other after a few months, something like that. The original study dates back to 1997, I think it would be interesting to see how the results turn out to be nowadays.”

“Does it necessarily have to be the same people?”

“It would be better that way. Unless you want to do the research again.”

Jinyoung thinks for a while. It’s not like Jaebum and Mark mentioned each other during these past months to him, they seemed like they’ve already forgotten the interview, and actually, if not for the unexpected email, Jinyoung would’ve forgotten too. And the most natural conclusion in his head is that if nothing happened during the winter break, if neither Mark nor Jaebum asked about each other despite both of them talking with Jinyoung for hours every day, it means that those questions don’t work.

And then he thinks that getting an easy and effortless A+ for a paper that describes a failed experiment isn’t that bad compared to having to think of a new topic and doing another experiment, guided by a less lenient professor.

“Alright, I think I can do it.”

Looking back at it, Jinyoung would say that this was a mistake number two, the first one being letting Mark and Jaebum meet in that astronomy class in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh jinyoung what on earth are you getting yourself and markbum into, tsk tsk. 
> 
> anyway, hope you liked it and comments are always welcomed!


	3. Chapter 3

Seeing Jaebum on almost a daily basis is slowly becoming a routine, Mark would think; greeting each other with careless hand gestures somewhere in corridors while rushing to their respective classrooms became the most natural thing; random small talks if they had enough time too, never forgetting to ask if the other will show up in astronomy class on Friday.

It’s a useless question really, just to assure each other, since they _always_ come there – one would think that it’s either an extremely interesting course or maybe their attendance marks are so screwed they can’t allow themselves to skip a few days. Their attendance for that particular class is perfect, however, the reasons are far from those – even if they both don’t really know those reasons themselves.

The classroom is always half empty due to absent students, but Mark Tuan and Im Jaebum are always present, sitting next to each other with wide smiles; it doesn’t really matter that they don’t actually listen to all those facts their teacher is spewing out, sun, stars and planets seeming so distant and not important compared to those countless pages in their notes, full of tic tac toe grids and ridiculous penalties for losing.

However, that one Friday, three weeks into the semester, Mark is greeted by an unexpected occurrence – Jaebum is nowhere to be found before the class, what is surprising already, considering that for some reason he liked to get to the classroom at least fifteen minutes too early.

At first, he isn’t that worried, but minutes are ticking, Jaebum is still not here, and Mark finds himself feeling uneasy. Not only because it feels like high school times where he’d mop around sinking in his own dramatic self when his friends were absent from classes, but also because they have to register their homework paper topics. Of course, Mark and Jaebum didn’t bother to come up with one earlier, saying that there’s still plenty of time left, so the initial plan was to discuss it before or during the class, but Mark can already tell that the possibility of it happening is gradually getting close to zero.

The class starts with its typical ten or twelve students instead of sixty, the professor checks attendance and starts talking something about the atmosphere of Jupiter. Mark doesn’t listen, instead he takes out his phone and texts Jaebum asking where on earth is he.

Mark doesn’t really remember how he obtained Jaebum’s number in the first place, it just happened naturally, maybe during one of their traditional Fridays walks to a subway station to accompany Jaebum. The latter still stubbornly goes to the wrong one, not wanting to waste Mark’s time, but Mark still doesn’t know that and it’s not the point now, because Jaebum’s answer finally comes after a few minutes.

**I most probably will be skipping today, sorry.**

_We had to tell the prof our homework topic, what am I supposed to do now_

Jaebum reply reaches him only after a few more minutes and that doesn’t help Mark to stop impatiently tapping his desk.

**Choose whatever you wanna do a research on, I’m fine with it.**

_Well OK, but where tf are you anyway?_

**There’s some trouble, I can’t really text right now, see you soon.**

Mark frowns reading the message, because he’s not sure how to react to that – Jaebum’s answers to him usually aren’t this short and somehow strict, and the fact that the guy says he doesn’t even have time to explain what’s going on for some reason makes Mark a little sulky; but at the same time, he wants to find out what’s really up, so he raises his hand to ask the professor if he can excuse himself to the bathroom. She sighs in annoyance, but gestures him to go, since he isn't listening to what she’s telling anyway.

“Hello?” Jaebum is definitely a little surprised, when the latter instead of actually going to the bathroom, stands still in the corridor and after a few seconds of hesitation presses the call button.

Suddenly Mark starts feeling incredibly dumb, because he’s most probably just overreacting with no apparent reason, but a situation that Jaebum describes being a trouble to him doesn’t sit well with Mark, so he decides to proceed, “Where are you?”

“Why?” Jaebum’s voice unexpectedly cracks as if he got startled and Mark can swear he hears a muffled, “Shit.”

“You said there’s a trouble, so I thought… That you might need help or something?” Mark finishes, not without some stuttering, because the entire situation is so weird and foreign to him, he’s never like that even with Jinyoung, whom he considers being one of his closest friends.

Jaebum stays silent for a while, thinking whether to tell Mark or not, but after a few seconds he finally says, now almost whispering for some reason, “Do you know that park behind the arts faculty?”

“That one where first years have their PE classes?” Mark has trouble remembering the location, since he hasn’t been there ever since, well, his freshman year with those mandatory PE classes. “Yeah, I think I know.”

“I’m near the main entrance, so you should spot me easily, I’m wearing a red hoodie.” Jaebum tells him the directions. “But when you get there, be quiet, no loud talking, nothing, okay?”

Mark gets confused even more due to these kind of strange requirements, but doesn’t say anything more asides that he’s going to be there in about ten minutes. After hanging up, he returns to the classroom to take his stuff, but as soon as he finishes packing, he hears an annoyed, “The class is not over yet, Tuan, please sit down.”

“I kind of _really_ have to go.” Mark says, hoping that a friendly fake smile will melt the heart of a sixty-something year old witch of a professor, however, it doesn’t. “It’s an emergency.” He adds, hoping that it will make a better effect.

“And what exactly is the emergency?” She asks. A few students lift their sleepy eyes, catching every opportunity to be entertained, even if it’s a semi-argument between a student and a teacher.

Mark isn’t a good liar, when it comes to lying spontaneously, but he wishes for the best. “I forgot I have a doctor’s appointment.”

“ _Oh really_.” The professor is not impressed by this excuse in the slightest, mostly because it’s probably her thousandth time hearing it from her students. “What about your homework topic then?”

“Can we just email it to you, professor?” Mark is on the verge of losing his patience, because _he really really has to go_ , and the woman finally gives in, deciding that it’s just a waste of lecture time.

“I want to see it in my inbox before midnight, Tuan, and not even a second later.” She says, turning the slides on again and Mark sighs in relief, happy that everything ended relatively painlessly.

It’s raining outside, reminding Mark all the reasons why he hates the unpredictability of spring weather; also, this time it’s him who doesn’t have any umbrella nor proper clothing to cover himself from rain, but none of that matters as he’s sprinting down the path to the park Jaebum mentioned. It’s slippery and the path goes downhill on top of that, so it takes some skills not to fall face down into concrete.

When he reaches the park, he sees Jaebum, all drenched in the rain as it seems like he’s spent here some time already and looking somewhere up; Mark gets confused yet again, because Jaebum doesn’t move at all, it looks like he’s barely breathing and like he doesn’t even see the guy next to him, but this misconception is quickly denied, when he, still not looking at Mark, puts a finger against his lips, a sign for Mark to keep quiet.

The latter obeys, despite the fact that he’s terribly lost as to what’s going on and that the rain is already making its way behind the collar of his thin sweater. Few moments later he loses his patience, asking as quietly as possible, “What’s happening?”

“There’s a kitten up there.” Jaebum whispers back and Mark raises his eyebrows, not sure why a kitten in a tree is enough of a reason for Jaebum to skip a class, but he gets an explanation almost immediately. “I think he can’t get down, so I was just… figuring out a way how to take care of that.” His lowers his head in some sort of embarrassment, as if expecting Mark to make fun of him.

But the latter doesn’t, instead, he shifts his stare back to the maze of branches, and he finally sees it, a brown little ball of fur, obviously scared and meowing, the sound of it barely audible due to the heavy rain. Mark immediately feels bad for the pet, even though he was never a cat person, but that might partly be due to the influence of Jaebum.

“Have you tried anything before I got here?”

“I thought he’s going to come down if I get him some food, but seems like he’s too scared to even move.” Jaebum says. “I had a hotdog I bought on my way to the class, so I tried to convince him with a sausage, but it didn’t help.”

Mark thinks for a while, not sure what they can do – if the kitten is really that scared, and it seems like he is, judging from all those heart-wrenching meows, nothing will make him go down on his own; but it’s too cold to just stand in the same place any longer and Jaebum is still as clueless as before. And slowly, a thought after thought, Mark finally comes up with an idea, which now seems kind of obvious and he can’t believe he didn’t think about it earlier.

“Oh no you won’t.” Jaebum says, side-eyeing Mark and seeing how the latter is trying to measure the height of the tree with his eyes. “It’s rainy and slippery, and you can get hurt. You’re _not_ climbing that tree.”

“Do you have a better plan?” Mark slightly chuckles, when Jaebum is forced to shake his head in defeat, being too afraid of heights to do it himself. Mark isn’t afraid – sure, he hasn’t climbed a tree in years, but during his childhood he was a pretty decent climber whenever a ball or something got stuck in their neighborhood trees; a kitten shouldn’t be that big of a deal. “I just— I need to borrow your hoodie though, I won’t be able to get down if I hold a cat in my arms.”

Jaebum doesn’t even bat an eyelash, now standing in the rain only with a thin short-sleeved shirt and shivering; Mark gives him his sweater in exchange, however, Jaebum is too worried to put it on, watching how Mark is putting on the hoodie so that the hood would be in front of him, to comfortably hold the kitten while getting down if the mission is successful.

It’s indeed slippery as heck and Mark’s sweaty palms are not helping, creating an illusion that he’s about to fall backwards any second. It’s not that hard to find and reach he exact place where the kitten is trying to hide, asides those few somersaults his heart makes when a few thinner branches below his feet break.

The kitten looks terrified, but without any injuries, though Mark is not a vet – who knows what can actually be wrong. When he feels completely stable and able to move around, Mark reaches his hand out, not to pet the kitten, but rather to see the reaction. The kitten carefully, not trusting the newcomer, but still somewhat curiously sniffs his hand; after a few nerve-wracking moments meows again, and nuzzles his tiny head into Mark’s palm. It seems like he’s accepted enough to continue the rescue mission.

“Come here, little pal.” Mark says, petting the kitten and trying to carefully put it into the hood of Jaebum’s hoodie. This goes pretty well, better than he expects, only a few hisses and a few attempts to scratch his face and the kitten in secured in the hood, the pet’s little head now peeking out of it and reminding more of a baby kangaroo in its pouch. Mark would probably smile at this if not for one obstacle – they need to get down, and it’s not that easy.

Mark can’t deny, his heart is beating faster and faster as his feet are trying to find places stable enough to hold a guy who’s walking backwards and doesn’t really see what’s happening behind him. “Careful!” Jaebum gasps, when Mark’s foot slips; Mark himself feels scared now that all the initial courage is wearing off, but they need to return to the ground somehow, so he takes a deep breath and continues climbing, legs a bit numb and shaking from fear when he finally reaches what’s supposed to be a solid ground, but in reality is a pile of mud due to the rain.

Jaebum is right there to take over the rescued pet and Mark has nothing against it – Jaebum at least has some experience with animals thanks to all the time spent volunteering, but the kitten seems to like its current habitat too much, it taking some effort of the both guys to get him out of the hood.

“He seems fine.” Jaebum announces after a thorough look. The kitten meows, as if agreeing with it. “But still it’s better to take him to a clinic, just in case.”

They coddle the kitten up in Jaebum’s hoodie and off they go, a weird looking trio of two college guys with short-sleeved shirts (Mark doesn’t put his sweater back on, probably as a way to help Jaebum deal with the cold air, which is making his lips blue) in the pouring rain, and a tiny kitten, purring in satisfaction, being carried like the most fragile treasure in the whole world.

“Where are we going to keep him?” Mark asks, not really realizing what he just said.

“ _We_?”

Mark gets flustered for a second, feeling his cheeks getting pink, but soon he gets himself together. “I mean… We rescued it together, so I think it’s only fair for us to share the parenthood.”

Jaebum starts laughing at this statement, his laugh is incredibly contagious and Mark eventually bursts out in laughter as well, until Jaebum says, “You can’t keep pets in the dorm, right?”

“No.” Mark responds with a head shake. “Well, I heard some people kept hamsters and even rabbits once, but there’s definitely no room for cats. Besides, if I returned with a cat, Bambam would kill me in my sleep.”

“Who?” Jaebum frowns, hearing the weird name for the first time.

“My roommate. He’s not really into pets, it seems.” Jaebum doesn’t respond to that, even though Mark can’t hide his smile at the guy silently mumbling “ _asshole_ ”. “So, any other ideas?”

“I guess, I’ll just take him home and hope that my parents won’t throw me out, I have enough pets already, according to them.”

Mark gets curious. “How many of them do you actually have?”

“Three cats. And a goldfish, but that doesn’t really count.”

Mark gets a little bit surprised, but not in a bad way, taking care of pets is a much better free time activity than, for example, hanging out with questionable people, in his opinion; Jaebum gets so passionate talking about his cats that it’s the only topic Mark hears until they reach a subway station.

“This isn’t the station we go to usually though, will it be okay for you to transfer this much?” Mark asks, worried that the kitten might get cold. And that Jaebum himself might get sick too.

“Actually… it’s the station I should be going to every time.” Jaebum finally admits, flustered and looking away. “I just— I just kept going to the nearest one after our Friday classes so I wouldn’t waste your time.”

Mark needs a moment or a few to digest this information, but soon he only lets out a laugh, telling, “Idiot. I don’t mind spending time with you.”

This sentence gets them _both_ flustered and blushing, and Jaebum, trying to hide his blushing cheeks, says that he needs to go because the train is arriving soon. The pet gathers some attention, mainly from girls, and Mark thinks it’s not surprising, who wouldn’t look at a cute guy holding a kitten – _wait did he just said to himself that Jaebum is_ cute _? Nevermind_ – but Jaebum seems not to notice any stares, eyes fixed on his friend.

“See you later, cat lady.” Mark teases and Jaebum rolls his eyes at that.

“By the way, you’re welcome to visit him any day. If you want, of course.” He says, waving in goodbye and Mark only smiles at that, nodding. “Thanks for the help, it means a lot.”

 

None of them notice, because there’s just too many people in the station, but from the train that arrived a little earlier Jackson and Jinyoung get off, already celebrating Friday and going back to the dorm only to change their clothes for the evening.

“Isn’t that Mark and Jaebum?” Jackson points.

“Where?” Jinyoung is calm and almost disinterested, because Jackson is most probably just seeing things.

During these past weeks they barely saw each other because of their busy schedules, but they still messaged each other almost every day; neither Mark nor Jaebum asked about each other, and Jinyoung didn’t even know that they now have a class together, because both of the guys just forgot to mention it. Actually, seeing all this, Jinyoung already has a bit of his term paper done, describing them as completely unaffected by the experiment.

However, his eyes get wider, because it’s indeed them – Mark, Jaebum and… “Is that a _cat_?” Jinyoung asks, a little bit too loudly. “What are they doing here together? I thought they didn’t even talk to each other after that interview.”

Jackson only laughs at this amount of rambling coming from his friend. “Dude, maybe that experiment really works?”

“Shut up.” Jinyoung mumbles, seeing Jaebum waving to Mark, _waving_ , something Jinyoung has never seen Jaebum doing during those countless years of knowing each other.

“I’ll remind you this, when they start dating or something.” Jackson shrugs. “But if that happens, it’s definitely going to be your responsibility.”

“Jackson Wang, shut the fuck up.” Jinyoung repeats.

But for some reason, he feels really, really uneasy.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cats, you can never go wrong with cats.  
> i suffered so much over this chapter pls love it.
> 
> also, red velvet's zoo seems weirdly fitting to this.
> 
> as always, excuse the possible typos and comments are always welcomed


	4. Chapter 4

“What’s _that_ all about?”

Mark flinches, hearing a loud thump on a library table next to him. That something turns out to be Jinyoung’s backpack, the guy appearing out of nowhere and for no apparent reason. Scratch that - the reason must exist in one way or another, because there’s absolutely no way that someone would summon him to a library when he’s not being crushed by deadlines.

“What’s all about what, books? I’m studying for my taxation test next week, people sometimes do that, you know. They study.” Mark says while stretching out; almost three hours of sitting crouched with some terrible books he doesn’t even really understand isn’t the best activity for one’s body.  

Jinyoung shakes his head, because he’s not interested in books at all, and Mark follows his friend’s gaze to a chair next to him, harboring what is clearly Jaebum’s backpack. Jinyoung keeps suggestively looking at it, waiting for his friend to elaborate, but Mark keeps stubbornly (and probably on purpose) waiting for him to speak up first.

“Jaebum’s backpack.” He finally runs out of patience, pointing at the bag. “What is it doing here?”

“We’re studying together.” Mark frowns, not quite sure why it’s such an issue. “I met him on my way here and we decided that it’s going to be more fun that way, rather than just sitting and pretending we don’t know each other.”

Jinyoung bitterly snorts. “Oh, I think you know each other alright by now.”

“Okay, what’s your problem?” Mark crosses his arms on his chest, not sure why Jinyoung seems so bothered by the fact that he and Jaebum are friends. He doesn’t put much thought into it though, Jinyoung has always been a person depending on his moods, so maybe it’s just a bad day, or a bad class, or something, and being sulky about everything is his way of coping.

“There’s no problem.” Jinyoung tells, more trying to convince and get _himself_ together. Truth is, he saw it only by a sheer accident when he came here to take a book for one of his class, noticing Mark sitting next to one of the tables with Jaebum’s bag next to him. Even though the other guy wasn’t present, Jinyoung suddenly remembered all the times he saw them together (more like that one time in the subway station, when they were all giggly and with a _cat_ ) and it doesn’t sit well with him; he tries not to think about his psychology paper or the experiment, but Jackson’s words about Mark and Jaebum dating are echoing in his mind, and at this point, he feels like he’s going insane. “I just didn’t know you’re such good friends now.”

Mark thinks about it for a while, because Jinyoung does have a point, actually, it feels a little bit surprising and sudden for him too – due to his slightly shy and reserved nature it never was easy for him to warm up to people quickly, unless they are either as persistent as Jinyoung, who kept pestering him almost literally twenty four-seven during the first days of their friendship, or as equally shy and socially awkward, which is exactly what Im Jaebum is. A little shy, easily embarrassed, but extremely nice, friendly and cute.

 _Wait, did he call Jaebum cute_ again _?_

“We’re just on friendly terms with each other since we’re working on a project together.” He says, trying to get rid of that unnecessary thought.

However, this just seems to make Jinyoung even more perplexed. “What project?”

“For astronomy class.”

“You… don’t have an astronomy class.”

Mark sighs, admitting. “I do. Enrolled into it that day when you asked me to drop out for you. Jaebum needed a homework partner and it didn’t feel right to leave him alone in that shit after you decided to ditch the course.”

If at first Jinyoung wasn’t satisfied that Jaebum and Mark are getting closer and closer to the point of studying together, now he’s straight up terrified, because those two even have classes together, moreover, Mark has that class _because_ of Jaebum.

“I don’t understand what’s the big deal though.” Mark continues. “It’s not like I’m taking a friend away from you or something, calm down. Or do you maybe have a crush on him or whatever?”

“The day I’m going to develop a crush on Im Jaebum is the day I’m dropping out of this university.” Jinyoung scrunches his nose in disgust, as even the thought of him _liking_ liking Jaebum makes him sick; he knows too much about the guy to ever develop something that would be sorted to the romantic side of the scale of feelings.

“Well, judging from your transcripts, you’re already close to being kicked out, so we might as well just plan a date right now.” They hear Jaebum’s voice behind their backs and Jinyoung’s heart almost jumps out of his chest. “If you ever think about bringing me flowers, I like roses, by the way.”

He’s carrying two cups of coffee, keeping one for himself and pushing another one to Mark, who responds to it with a wide smile that makes Jinyoung sick. “How the hell you know what’s in my transcripts?” he asks defensively, because he knows nothing better than to hide the true point of this conversation behind being an asshole.

“I part time in our office of student affairs, so let’s just say sometimes I have the access.”

“Well fuck you then, I hope you’ll get caught one day.” Jinyoung kindly wishes upon him, since usually student transcripts are strictly confidential. “By the way, coffee or any other kind of drinks is forbidden in the library.”

Jaebum rolls his eyes, not really understanding what’s gotten into his friend. “So should being a pain in the ass be, but just look at you.”

Jinyoung just shakes his head at this and plops into a chair next to Mark, much to both of the guys’ surprise.

“What are you doing?” Mark slowly asks, not quite sure why he decided to stay instead of going to annoy someone else.

Jinyoung returns him the most innocent look ever, accompanied with the most innocent smile he can possibly fake, searching for books in his backpack. “I came to study too, so I thought I’ll join you guys, so it, you know, wouldn’t look like we’re wasting time pretending we don’t know each other.”

Mark raises his eyebrow at his own words being so shamelessly quoted back; Jaebum, taking a sip of his coffee and returning to his notes, mumbles only, “Suit yourself.”

Jinyoung doesn’t know what he expects to see, maybe some flirting or whatever, hand holding and cheesy remarks coming from his friends, confirming his wildest fears and Jackson’s most favorite guesses, but there’s nothing. In fact, Mark and Jaebum barely talk, focused on their books, and the only contact Jinyoung notices is those rare moments with standard studying phrases such as _can I borrow your eraser_ or _do you perhaps have a calculator, because I feel like my phone is showing nonsense_.

It’s making Jinyoung sleepy; the library is too quiet for him and there’s nothing happening between the guys next to him, the only sound he hears is that obnoxious page shuffling when Jaebum or Mark are searching for a formula or something. The only thing that keeps him awake and occupied is rewriting his lecture notes (that consist of one paragraph anyway, because he’s not much of a note taker, fully convinced that if something is bound to be learned, it will reach one’s brain even without writing it down) countless times. His eyelids are gradually getting heavier and heavier and Jinyoung thinks that he’s just going to close his eyes for a few seconds to shoo the sleepiness away.

When he wakes up, it’s two hours later with no sign of Mark and Jaebum in the library.

 

“I kind of feel bad for leaving him there to sleep.” Jaebum laughs, as they’re walking down the corridor.

“Serves him right though. He’s been acting way too weird lately.” Mark shrugs. Jaebum doesn’t ask for an elaboration about what he means by that, and maybe it’s for the better. “By the way, did you see the email? Witch Yang changed the astronomy project deadline date.”

Jaebum chuckles at the nickname they both gave her because of the professor’s unbearable personality, but eventually shakes his head, as he hasn’t checked his university mail for a few days already – much like every other student in this place.

“Well, anyway, we have two weeks now.” Mark announces and smiles at Jaebum’s terrified expression – having to write a twenty pages long paper for an elective in two weeks, when they have shitloads of more important tests to prepare for doesn’t sound appealing at all. “So I suggest start working on it soon, because otherwise my prophecy will come true and we’re literally going to rip our hair out doing this the last night.”

Jaebum considers something for a while and wants to voice it out, but, unfortunately, stutters and his cheeks flush in embarrassment, when Mark turns to him to check what’s going on, since on top of that, Jaebum falls into a coughing fit.

“You okay there?” Mark asks, slapping his back a few times, in case he’s really choking on air. “I know we don’t have much time, but no need to panic like that, we got this.”

Jaebum is thankful even for a joke as lame as this to ease the situation, since his cheeks don’t seem like they are going to get back to their normal color anytime soon. He gathers all his courage and determination not to stumble on his own tongue this time and says, “What are your plans for today?”

“Nothing special, I don’t have anything planned.” Mark’s gaze immediately gets curious. “Why?”

“I thought… I thought we could go to my place or something, and at least get down the basics for that project.” Jaebum quickly answers and it hits him that Mark’s expression drops from anticipation to some weird slight disappointment, but in a split second it’s gone, now the guy is softly smiling.

“Sure thing. Better than suffocating in the library, I guess.”

He tries to play it off cooly, but for some reason Mark is getting _nervous_ ; all this time it was a routine, to accompany Jaebum to a subway station, wave him off and go back to the dorm, but here they are now, both waiting for the same train.

It’s just a project, he tries to tell himself, because it’s _really_ only a project; he’s done countless of those throughout his studies, this one isn’t somehow special.

But then why, _why on earth_ his heart drops after Jaebum grabs his hand so he wouldn’t fall when a mass of people are getting off the train in one particular busy station, not minding anyone in their way, pushing and cursing?

Jaebum also gets flustered, he’s so flustered about that, he keeps Mark’s wrist in his palm a few seconds too long for it to feel natural, and it results in both of the guys awkwardly smiling, not really looking at each other for most of the journey. Which is unbearably long, since Jaebum technically doesn’t even live in Seoul, just in its satellite area named Goyang, god bless the fast subway route for shortening the commute time to a mere hour and a bit.

Mark doesn’t think he’s been here in recent months or maybe even years, so he’s completely reliant on Jaebum to guide him through all the narrow streets and intersections. They try to have some sort of conversation so it wouldn’t feel so terribly awkward, and when they reach the apartment building Jaebum lives in, they’re full of smiles and laughter again, however, this time more aware of the topics and each other.

It feels extremely weird to meet Jaebum’s mom, even though she’s a very nice woman, making Mark laugh at the way she nags at her son and complains about Mark looking too skinny, so it’s decided that he’ll be getting an extra portion of lunch.

He tries to find a way to refuse, because he’s really not that hungry, but Jaebum just shakes his head. “Don’t argue with her, if you refuse, she’ll still put too much in your plate by _“accident”_. He puts air quotes on the word as they’re sitting down in the kitchen. “And don’t worry anyway, she always makes such amounts of food that we probably would be able to feed our entire university.”

Lunch time passes quickly with Jaebum’s mom being on the more talkative side, so all they have to do is eat their food and nod a few times, showing they’re listening. Jaebum tries to save Mark, who of course gets more food than he can possibly eat, occasionally stealing whole spoonfuls of rice and meat from his friend’s plate when his mom doesn’t look.

Mark doesn’t have any expectations for Jaebum’s room, but he has to admit that he gets a little surprised about how neat the room is, considering that there are three (four, if they count the rescued one) cats living here, since Jaebum is allowed to keep this many pets only with a condition that they won’t be freely roaming the flat.

He smiles warmly though, seeing Jaebum petting and talking with every cat as if he was a parent, who came back home from a long day of work and is trying to check up on his kids. Mark’s stare naturally shifts to search for the kitten they rescued a few days ago, but he’s nowhere to be found, until Jaebum gets on the floor, searching for something under his bed, and when he finally stands up, there’s another kitten in his arms.

“He’s a little shy, so he always hides under the bed if there’s someone else in my room.” Jaebum explains and Mark carefully pets the kitten’s head, testing whether he still remembers the guy who climbed a damn tree for him. He does, and Jaebum gives him for Mark to hold. “He doesn’t have a name yet though, I couldn’t think of anything.”

“We’ll work on it later.” Mark replies, trying to sit on Jaebum’s bed with a pet in his hands and avoid touching the cat toys the bed is full of; he doesn’t want to risk it after seeing how one of the cats released its nails right into Jaebum’s palm when he tried to move one. “Now, the assignment.”

Jaebum takes his laptop to finally read that email from their professor, hoping that Mark only mixed something up, and sighs, indeed seeing two weeks left. “What’s our topic again?”

“Moon.”

“Who the hell picked _that_?”

“You said you’re okay with anything I pick, remember?” Mark says defensively. It was the first astronomical object that came into his mind when he sat down to email the professor about their choice, and, luckily, it wasn’t taken yet.

Jaebum’s dissatisfaction is gone like a smoke. “Okay, then. Moon it is.”

They start reading the requirements and try to assign tasks to each other, all of this while the kitten is comfortably snuggled on Mark’s lap and having a nap; he feels a bit uncomfortable working like that, but he doesn’t have the heart to shoo the pet away in case he would wake up, so they continue like that – surrounded by casual meowing and Jaebum’s endless, “Nora, I swear to god, if I see you near the fish tank one more time, you’ll be sleeping outside.” and, “Odd, what are you chewing, spit that out, _now._ ” which make him look like a very desperate first-time dad.

They don’t notice how quickly time passes and the day turns into evening, working on the project turns into watching random videos and laughing at lame jokes, until Mark finally realizes it’s already past 10 PM. His heart skips a beat, because he knows that he definitely won’t be able to reach the dorm till midnight, resulting in having to sleep outside due to the strict curfew policy.

“You can just sleep here.” Jaebum shrugs after Mark answers why does he look like he’s about to have a heart attack. “If you don’t mind all the cats, of course. Though I probably could ask my parents to let them be in the living room for tonight. My mom already loves you to the point she would adopt you if she could, and my dad won’t be against it either.”

“I can’t just— Sleep here.” Mark shakes his head, because even despite knowing Jaebum for weeks already, it does feel a little weird, making his heart race even more for some reason.

“Yes you can.” Jaebum responds, voice strict this time. “Unless you’re planning to go an extra mile for our project and sleep outside to see the moon or something. Seriously, you’re not going anywhere at this time of the day.”

Mark, however, is still as stubborn as ever. “But you have classes tomorrow, I will just cause problems—“

“Shut up, will you.” Jaebum says, ending the discussion. “I don’t have morning classes tomorrow, so we’re all good. Now raid my wardrobe for a spare shirt if you don’t want to sleep in your own clothes, and get your ass to the kitchen, I’m sure my mom said something about making snacks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> buy kard's hola hola on itunes, because this is what this chapter was edited to  
> anyway, boys are having a sleepover with all their cats, i wonder what's gonna happen :))))  
> i have no idea tbvh
> 
> anyway, i hope you liked it and comments are always welcomed. (i feel like it's like my signature phrase after every chapter, like come and get it got7 or smth lmao)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before we get into the chapter, a bit of shameless markbum-related promo. there's a markbum fic fest that's now in the sign ups stage, so if you want to take a shot at it just hit the [twitter](https://twitter.com/markbumficfest) link for more info.
> 
> and also, for those of you who might not know what markbum are talking about later in the fic and why it's so ridiculous, Dooly is the main character of one of the most famous korean cartoons. it's like a green baby dinosaur, abducted by aliens when he was little, given superpowers and returned to modern (well, "modern", since it started airing in 1987 or something) times, having the intimidation level of, like, zero.

No matter how Mark thinks about it, everything’s _weird_.

It’s weird to be in Jaebum’s kitchen, the latter sitting on a counter while Mark is shamelessly occupying the kitchen table a few dozens of centimeters away from him, both of them engaged in a ridiculous battle of who will pull another one down faster using only their legs. It’s strange to be laughing when his friend’s mom walks in on them and starts nagging only at Jaebum for this, even though they both are equally guilty.

It’s also weird to sit on Jaebum’s bed later, both of them cradling cups of hot chocolate and watching another bunch of videos before sleeping, starting from stuff like “10 prettiest cats in the world” and ending with such ridiculous things as “10 weirdest bicycles”, this particular one making Mark sleepy, and he catches himself being only a few centimeters away from falling asleep on Jaebum’s shoulder.  

It’s even weirder to smell Jaebum’s shower gel on his skin and wear his clothes for sleeping, even though those are clearly too big on Mark, what makes Jaebum laugh, because the older guy’s shoulders are so narrow, Jaebum’s shirt is hanging on his back like a parachute. It’s almost just as weird as seeing Jaebum’s dad trying to gather all the cats and take them out of the room in one go, while his son is trying to fit an air bed in the space on the floor. And it’s twice as weird to argue with Jaebum that he can sleep on the floor, because really, it’s nothing that terrible.  

“When do you need to wake up tomorrow?” Jaebum yawns out, when he finally convinces Mark to sleep in his bed. The latter is all cuddled in Jaebum’s blankets, looking how the younger is trying not to get strangled by chargers of both his laptop and phone, which are making a mess on the floor, and set up an alarm clock for the morning.

“I can wake up at, like, six or something, and get out of here as quietly as possible.” Mark offers immediately. The less time he’s going to spend here being a trouble for everyone, the calmer his conscience is going to be; however, Jaebum once again shoots him one of those _are you kidding me_ stares, wordlessly telling Mark that he’s not going to argue about that. “When are you going to wake up yourself, then?”

“I have a class at twelve, so I guess a little bit before ten should do.” Jaebum says and Mark nods, agreeing. He doesn’t have any classes tomorrow anyway, and can adjust to whatever.

Jaebum finally sets his alarm clock and the room quiets down, both of them getting ready to sleep; but for some reason, sleep just doesn’t come no matter how much they roll around, eyes wide and without any hint of sleepiness, even if both of the guys were basically dozing off next to each other less than an hour ago.

It takes another thirty minutes or something for Jaebum to muster up his courage to quietly whisper, “Mark?”

It’s silent, just in case the older guy is finally sleeping, as he hasn’t heard him moving for quite a while; it’s almost inaudible, but Mark’s ears still catch it, because he’s not sleeping either, eyes open and staring at Jaebum’s plain white ceiling that is now colored with this weird blueish tone thanks to the nighttime and those bits of light getting into the room through closed curtains.

“Yeah?” He answers after a short while, rolling onto his side so he could see what his friend is up to.

“You’re awake?”

Mark laughs at the question. “Are you expecting me to say no?”

Jaebum chuckles then, because it probably was a stupid question, so soon he opts for another, weirdly happy that he’s not the only one having troubles falling asleep. “Why are you not sleeping yet?”

“I don’t know.” Mark replies, sitting up.

Jaebum is lying on his back also staring at the ceiling, his stare shifts only a few moments later, concentrating on Mark. Mark looks different in the dark, he decides, but it’s not a bad kind of different – his dark brown hair looks almost black, which suits him anyway; his eyes are glimmering much more intriguingly than it does during daytime, and…

And it all gets Jaebum wondering how does he even know how Mark’s eyes sparkle on a daily basis, because he never thought he’s paying much attention to that.

“I guess, I’m just not really comfortable sleeping in unfamiliar places.” Mark continues. He doesn’t add that it might also be because of this weird feeling in his guts that he can’t really describe. It’s like indigestion, to put it not so nicely, but at the same time, it’s not quite that, either. “What about you?”

“I don’t know.” Jaebum’s answer is the same. “It’s probably one of those nights when you’re tired as fuck, but your brain just seem to be unable to shut down for some reason.” He barely makes it to the end of the sentence, because Mark jumps, gasping at the weird sound coming from outside the room; Jaebum only laughs at it, because the sound is painfully known to him. “Calm down, it’s probably just one of my cats who got offended by having to sleep somewhere else for tonight.”

 _Probably_ doesn’t sound convincing enough for Mark, so Jaebum has to get up and open the door to check, only for a little ball of brown fur to scoot in before he’s even able to get into the kitten’s way. The pet is obviously not satisfied by this sleeping arrangement, so he goes straight to Jaebum’s air bed, the latter praying that the little guy wouldn’t deflate it with his nails, and demonstratively makes a nest from the blankets around himself.

“There goes my bed.” Jaebum sighs, but he’s smiling, not mad in the slightest. “He seems a little dumb and shy, but he’s stubborn as heck, so I’m just going to save a few scratches and not fight him.”

Mark’s efforts to softly take the still nameless kitten in his arms for Jaebum to get back to his bed are not enough apparently, the pet allowing to be petted a few times, but hissing every time Mark tries to actually lift him, and Jaebum shakes his head. “It’s okay, I’ll just go sleep in the living room with the other three and hope not to get strangled with their tails or something.”

“How do you survive with four of them in one room?”

“My parents keep telling they’ll get rid of all the cats if I let them roam the flat uncontrollably,” Jaebum chuckles, “But actually they love them just as I do, so usually they don’t spend that much time in my room, if they behave properly. Nora, Odd and Kunta are older, so they don’t need that much, just for me to feed them, play with them once in a while and leave them alone after that, but this one seems like still going through his rebellious childhood phase.” He doesn’t feel how he starts rambling, earning nothing but laughter from his friend. “Oh my god, I’m talking about cats too much again, aren’t I?”

Mark laughs at his red cheeks even more. “No, it’s fine. I like when people talk about what they love, it’s cute.”

This doesn’t help Jaebum as he gets even more flustered, saying, “Okay, I’ll be going, I have three cats to fight with in the living room and some prayers to say so that I’d be able to actually sleep on the couch and not on the floor.”

Mark can’t understand why everything his friend jokes about seems like the funniest thing ever, but this night is already weird enough, so he doesn’t even feel how he tells, “Or you can just sleep here.” It takes a few moments for him to realize the possible implication behind that, and the wish to disappear from the surface of his earth is having a blast in his mind. Jaebum looks just as perplexed. “I didn’t mean anything— I just— You know what, I can just go sleep in the living room, I don’t mind.”

Jaebum thinks for a while, once the initial shock subsides, and then he simply shrugs, telling Mark to stay. “I mean, it’s probably nothing weird to share a bed with a friend?”

It’s nothing weird to share a bed with a friend, right, but then why they both feel so damn weird when Mark tries to almost glue himself to the wall so that the younger would have enough space; then why Jaebum feels so stiff lying down, so painfully stiff it feels like he’s afraid of even breathing in order not to scare Mark off?

“Jinyoung would probably have a field day watching this, he feeds off of people being uncomfortable.” Mark suddenly says, and Jaebum bursts out laughing, because a) Jinyoung probably would and b) that’s a very unexpected person to mention in a situation like this. The laugh is contagious and getting uncontrollable; they have to try their best not to wake Jaebum’s parents up to check what’s happening here. It would be quite hard to explain the sight, to say the least. “Or rather a heart attack, for some reason he’s not so keen on seeing us together.”

“Probably he didn’t expect us getting so close after that stupid interview.” Jaebum says, feeling how his cheeks are hurting from laughing too much. “I still don’t get what that one was about. I don’t think he would’ve passed just with a paper about two people talking, sounds fishy.”

“Psychology is weird,” Mark comes to a conclusion. “Jinyoung is weird as well, so maybe it makes a good combination.”

“Jackson, one of our mutual friends, said Jinyoung was asked to extend that paper during this semester. Maybe we did impress his professors after all.”

“If by extending they meant more interviews with us, no thank you.”

For a while they stay silent, it’s not that awkward anymore, at least they’re able to breathe around each other properly, it’s just a little bit too warm due to the cramped space and how close to each other they are.

“We still haven’t named our cat.” Jaebum says when he notices that Mark still isn’t sleeping, closing his eyes for a few seconds and opening them again immediately after.

 _Our_ escapes his mouth effortlessly, without much thought, and maybe due to a late hour Mark doesn’t pay attention to it, the word sounding so natural to his ears for some reason. “We can do that now, we’re not sleeping anyway. Any ideas?”

“To be honest, no.” Jaebum admits. None of the names he had thought of earlier really stuck to the pet, no matter how hard he thought about it.

Mark turns his head and leans over Jaebum for a bit to look at the kitten (Jaebum’s heart almost stops, but he thinks it’s just the lack of sleep), who’s now satisfied and sleeping in Jaebum’s place, the moonlight dripping on the pet through a gap of curtains seeming like it doesn’t bother him at all. So Mark then says the first word that comes to his mind, for an unknown reason feeling just right. “Moon.”

“I’m not naming a cat after our homework project.” Jaebum opposes, offended by this atrocious idea. “Every time I’d call him by that name, I’d remember witch Yang. Besides, it doesn’t even suit him, he’s not even moonlight colored.”

Mark feels up for a discussion. “Then what are you going to name him after according to his fur color? The door of 116th classroom of the economics faculty? Because that’s what I get reminded of looking at that color.”

“I kind of dig it, but that’s too long, don’t you think?” Jaebum teases. “But I see someone’s been to that classroom and still hasn’t dropped out of the university? People like you are urban legends.”

Classroom number 116 is the cave of one math professor, a person through whom they all had to suffer, Mark in his first year as a future economist and Jaebum, accounting major, in his second. Professor Park is a definition of all the evil in the world, and Mark had to retake the final exam thrice before he finally passed, since the professor had some certain hatred towards him; that’s why he remembers that classroom so well – he’s spent some time there.

“Anyway,” Jaebum continues. “I kind of thought about naming him Sand or something like that.”

It’s not that bad of a name, Mark has to admit, but his inner petty self doesn’t allow to accept it, so he shakes his head. “No, Moon.”

“Why are you so obsessed with that name?”

Mark himself doesn’t know, but is still ready to fight for it. “Moon, or I’m going to sleep in the living room.”

He suddenly feels like they’re a couple who’s been married for the last couple of years, and he expects Jaebum to laugh, telling him to go ahead and see if he cares, because seriously, what kind of argument is that, it makes absolutely no sense; however, Jaebum doesn’t even blink before deciding, “Moon it is.”

 _Oh, now that was unexpectedly easy,_ Mark thinks.

Now that it’s half past three in the morning and the biggest issue of naming the kitten is already solved, they get into some random conversation that’s supposed to ease them into sleep; they really need some, especially Jaebum, since he has classes, so they share some stories about their childhood, friends, some other harmless stories as well.

The last thing Mark remembers Jaebum asking before he drifts to a dreamland of his is, “Do you like someone?”

“What do you mean by _like_?” Mark says, feeling his eyelids getting too heavy to keep open. The question sounds a bit childish, something that middle school students would gush about during sleepovers, but he doesn’t pick on that.

“I don’t know,” Jaebum says, the sleepiness not allowing him to think straight, because otherwise he would already have flung himself out of the window for such questions. “Like a crush or something.”

“I don’t know.” Mark mumbles, speech almost unintelligible anymore, and the younger has no idea whether he’s saying that he doesn’t know if he has a crush at the moment, or if he’s simply mocking his words.

He doesn’t ask anymore though.

 

Jaebum wakes up only after the third time his alarm clock repeats itself, feeling drained and in need for at least a few more hours of sleep. He stretches in the bed, feeling like it’s the most normal morning, but soon, the back of his brain realizes that there’s something wrong – Mark clearly fell asleep next to him last night, but that space is empty now, and Jaebum takes only a second to jump from his bed and rush out of the room, almost tripping.

“Mom, where’s Mark?” He asks out of breath, hearing someone talking in the kitchen, and receives only laughter in response. Mark is in the kitchen as well, fully dressed and ready for the day, putting plates on the table for breakfast. “Oh, you’re here. I didn’t find you in the room, so…”

“So you got scared of sleeping alone?” His mom laughs, ruffling his hair instead wishing a regular good morning. “He’s always been a scaredy-cat of ours, this child. Up until middle school he’d snuggle into our bed for the night.”

“ _Mom_.” Jaebum wails, because he doesn’t need anyone to know that and also because he doesn’t know anymore how many stories like this Mark has already heard by now.

“But it’s true, baby, isn’t it?” he only rolls his eyes, because he feels too old to be called baby by his mom, though he doesn’t say anything. “I’m going to a post office for a while, so eat your breakfast during that time. When I get back, I and dad will take you both to university.”

She gets going soon, leaving Mark and Jaebum sitting down at the table to eat. “So, how many embarrassing facts have you learned about me so far?” Jaebum asks, drinking his tea.

“Not much. Only that you were afraid of Dooly when you were a kid and cried every time it came up on screen. Oh, and also that for someone reason you were scared of getting your nails and hair cut till you were five. What’s up with that?” Mark laughs, stuffing his mouth with food and looking at Jaebum, who’s gradually turning the same shade of red as his mom’s apron, hanging from the kitchen door.

“I always thought that cutting nails and hair is going to hurt, okay.” Jaebum mumbles, embarrassed. “Kids are stupid, I was stupid too. Jesus, my mom’s unbearable, who asked her to tell you all this.”

However, Mark seems like he has another opinion. “Your mom is sweet. She even called me her son by accident. One of her friends called and asked if she’s busy, she said she’s cooking breakfast with her son.”

“Great.” Jaebum pretends to be sulky, but it’s obvious he’s trying his best to hold the laughter in. “Now you all can just team up and kick me out of the house, since apparently my mom can’t distinguish between her own son and his friend. I hope you’ll hire me as your butler or something, at least.”

Despite all the bantering, they’re done with their breakfast soon. Mark offers to do the dishes while Jaebum is feeding all of his pets, the latter’s mom returns not that long after and off they go, this time all together.

They barely talk during the entire car drive, only Jaebum’s parents are discussing something they hear on the radio, from time to time asking opinions of the guys on the backseat. They don’t seem to have any interest about politics, though, so the next topic in the car is, of course, youth’s lack of involvement in running the country.

There’s not that many cars on the road, so they reach the main area of Seoul in merely forty minutes, taking another twenty to take various shortcuts to drop the guys off near university.

“Mark, dear, I put some snacks in your backpack, so enjoy them, okay?” Jaebum’s mom says, when Mark is about to get off the car after saying his goodbyes.

“Why don’t I get any snacks?” Jaebum dramatically frowns, still leaning over to kiss his mom on the cheek. “Why does nobody like me in this family?”

Mark can’t help but laugh, when Jaebum’s dad humorously says, “Well, son, I’d love you a little bit more if one of your cats wouldn’t constantly piss on my finest shoes. Alright kids, we need to go, have a nice day.”

“Congrats,” Jaebum snorts, when his parents are gone out of sight. “You’re officially the favourite son in this family, and you’re not even their actual son.”

“Don’t be so butthurt, it’s not your fault, it’s me. I’m _that_ cute.” Mark says laughing, as they’re walking to the campus. Jaebum punches his shoulder. “So what’s your schedule for today?”

“I have classes till five and after that I’m free for the rest of the day.”

Mark shrugs, turning to the opposite side from where Jaebum is supposed to be going for his classes. “I’m free for the entire day, so if you won’t have anything better to do, shoot me a message or something.”

“I will.” Jaebum promises and starts running, because he’s almost late.

For some reason Mark feels very warm, looking at Jaebum’s back, thinking how he woke up to the younger’s head resting on his shoulder, even though he didn’t mention it during breakfast, since Jaebum didn’t seem to remember it. It felt weird, like most of the things related to that sleepover, but still, nice as well.

 

A few hours later, Jinyoung lifts his head from the movie they’re watching, hearing his phone ring in notification for text messages. Seeing Jaebum’s name on it, he wants to ignore, because he’s still mad about being left to sleep in the library alone, but in the slew of messages, since Jaebum never bothers to write one long text, he notices words that make his heart drop to his guts.

_OK it might seem very weird and out of the blue_

_but i was just wondering_

_maybe_

_do you perhaps know if mark’s seeing someone rn?_

Jackson, pausing the movie and leaning over Jinyoung’s shoulder to read what’s all the fuss about, whistles and Jinyoung wants to punch him in the face.

Or maybe to punch himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally we're getting somewhere with this relationship, much to jinyoung's panic, also lmao @ jackson, because he almost spilled the beans to jaebum apparently, since he knows about jinyoung having to expand the study, oh boy.
> 
> anyway, i hope you liked it, and comments are always welcomed (also, sign up for the markbum fic fest, we need more fics, don't we :)))))))) )


	6. Chapter 6

“Now that we’re all gathered to this important emergency meeting,” Jinyoung announces, voice too solemn and dramatic for the occasion, “We need to decide how we’re going to act from now on and what measures should be taken.”

Jackson rolls his eyes completely unimpressed, sitting on his dorm bed and taking a big sip of soda he begged Jinyoung to allow him go and buy in a convenience store nearby before this whole ridiculous discussion. (Yes, he had to tread on eggshells to get a permission to leave _his own room_. Jinyoung can be a little aggressive when he’s under pressure, even if the pressure is imaginary.)

“First, stop acting like we’re in some sort of secret FBI meeting, second _we_ are not doing anything, because it’s _your_ mess. Third, why do you even want to do anything?” Jackson asks, questioning all the right things, but Jinyoung is good at ignoring and being selectively deaf.

“Because Jaebum is clearly thinking about asking Mark out?” He waves his phone right in front of Jackson’s face, as if the latter wouldn’t have been forced to read those messages at least six times already.

“You don’t know that, and even if that’s the case, I fail to see how’s that a problem.”

It’s Jinyoung’s turn to roll his eyes, because he doesn’t know how it’s possible to be so oblivious. “Remember my assignment? The one you said had those questions to fall in love or whatever. They both participate in that assignment and four months later, they’re spending more time together than apart, and Jaebum asks me if Mark’s dating anyone. Coincidence? I think not.”

Jackson only shrugs, because he’s too sleepy to think, not getting his well-deserved afternoon nap due to his friend’s conspiracy theories and not seeing what’s so panic-worthy. “Can we get straight to the problem?”

“The problem is,” Jinyoung sighs, “If they fell in love, it means the experiment is actually working and is not a bunch of bullshit like I thought before. It also means that it’s my fault, because it was my assignment. And that also means, they don’t even like each other.”

Jackson has to rub his temples in attempt to process this kind of logic twist, but to no avail. “How on earth being curious about someone dating, in the most possible scenario of Jaebum planning to ask him out, equals _not_ liking that someone?”

Jinyoung almost wails; it’s too hard to make a point when his friend has no clue about what’s happening. “Okay, listen. It means they fell in love only by _accident_ , just like, let’s say, two parts of something fused together by force, and that’s not _love._ This is definitely going to end in a heartbreak or two once they take off their rose-tinted glasses, or worse, find out about that experiment, and I don’t want to be beheaded by two angsty ex-lovers for that.”

“Isn’t love just, love?” Jackson says, falling backwards on his bed because he’s not ready for these philosophical discussions. “Who cares how they fell in love if the endgame is them getting together. It’s not up to you to judge the nature of their feelings, if there even is some to begin with. Besides, they’ve been spending an awful lot of time together, it’s not that shocking that feelings might have gotten involved, it happens.”

“Yeah, but they’re spending time together _because_ they met during that interview for my assignment.” Jinyoung honestly wants to rip his hair out by now. “If something goes down, my guilty conscience will tear me apart and I _still_ have that paper to write. Perhaps it’s better to tell them about the experiment? Or maybe I should just tell Jaebum that Mark has some sort of a relationship overseas or something, and write about how this experiment turned out to be a failure?”

Jackson is rarely the one to judge, having done some pretty questionable shit himself to get out of unfavorable situations, but this time even he can’t help but shoot a judging stare at his friend. “Are you serious? They will eat you alive _for_ telling that it was all an experiment, so keep your mouth shut and tell Jaebum the truth about Mark’s nonexistent love life, it’s up to him what he’s going to do with this. Watch them a little while writing your paper, and leave them be. If everything goes well, we’ll have a disgustingly cute couple and an A+ for your paper. That’s all there is to it, everybody wins.”

“So you think it’s better not to tell them anything and hope it won’t end in a disaster?”

Jackson nods, being absolutely sure everything’s going to be fine, so Jinyoung takes out his phone again and finally replies to Jaebum’s messages after a good hour of stalling, excusing himself that he was too busy to reply earlier.

No, he says, as far as he knows, Mark isn’t seeing anyone.

If their lives were a TV show, this would’ve that cliché part where the narrator’s monotonous voice announces that everything, if fact, isn’t going to be fine.

 

Jaebum is trying not die of boredom in his last class of the day when Jinyoung’s reply finally comes. He’s been feeling all anxious about the possible answer, not doing much in all the lectures today asides from constantly staring at his phone for it to finally buzz with the answer, although his heart is nervously jumping every time he gets a notification for something.

He doesn’t know what has gotten into him, why he asked such question and why the negative response makes him breathe out with such an ease. It’s not like he’s planning to ask Mark out or something, but the guy never talked about his relationships, leaving Jaebum curious; and the last night, when he didn’t get a definite answer to whether or not Mark is crushing on someone, probably was the last trigger that made him seek answers elsewhere. Even if Jaebum has no clue why he’s so interested in these answers in the first place.

Nevertheless, he has to admit to himself that last night was weird for him as well – not only because of the clumsy awkwardness and the fact that usually he sleeps very restlessly, always tossing the blankets and rolling around, but this time it felt like he didn’t even move while Mark was there next to him, sleeping like a baby. Jaebum also feels weirded out by suddenly becoming so _aware_ of Mark’s existence.

Not that he didn’t notice the guy before, these days they spend most of their free time together anyway, but Jaebum thinks he now notices all the small details – the way Mark bites his lips when he’s nervous about a test, how much sugar he puts in his coffee, at what time he usually wakes up on weekends (that one’s a no brainer though, he wakes up only a few minutes before Jaebum gets the first message from him; texting each other all day every day becoming a tradition). And this new knowledge is a little unsettling, but somehow… exciting.

“Im Jaebum, I’ll start taking points off your tests for dozing off during class.” The professor says, waking him up from inner monologues. Some of his coursemates laugh at how confused he looks when he finally snaps back to a boring reality of a 4 PM accounting theory class, and Jaebum mumbles an apology to this teacher.

The class ends soon with a ton of homework for next week and all the students groan in desperation, because midterms are already coming, there’s no legit reason why professors should kill them even more; but professors still do, and Jaebum, after writing down all the questions he has to find answers for till the next class, feels so tired, he doesn’t even see what he’s doing anymore.

He vaguely remembers having to text his sick friend about a deadline for this class, so while Jaebum is going outside, he opens a messaging app to quickly type the message in and get rid of the task; typically, it turns into a little mess.

Approximately two minutes after the sent message, his phone rings, making a fool out of him in the middle of the lobby of the faculty, a stupid song of a popular girl group blaring as his ringtone, since for some reason he accidentally turned the silent mode off again. Jaebum looks a little flustered and annoyed, wondering what kind of ass would call him this very moment, but he frowns in confusion, seeing Mark’s name flashing on the screen.

“What’s up?” Jaebum answers trying to sound cool, hiding the fact his heart just made a somersault that has nothing to do with the ringtone embarrassment.

“Are you sure I should look the deadline date up in the syllabus, since I don’t remember taking accounting theory this semester?” Mark half-laughing, mostly because Jaebum is speechless, not even knowing what he’s talking about. “The message you sent me just now. I assume, it wasn’t for me?”

Jaebum asks Mark to wait a little, wanting to check what exactly went wrong, and with a few taps on his phone, he sees the reason. His coursemate’s last name starts with letter M just like Mark’s name, and he simply pressed the wrong number walking out of the class – that’s what he explains to Mark.

“It’s okay, don’t sweat about it. It just surprised me.” The latter laughs it off. “So, you’re done with your classes today or do you still have something left?”

“Yeah.”

Mark’s laughter rings in his ear once again. “Well that’s a really elaborate answer. Do you have any plans?” He asks, and Jaebum, to his own weird happiness, feels how uncertain Mark sounds, as if trying to figure out if it’s an okay thing to ask.

“No, I’m about to head home.” Jaebum’s answer comes a little prolonged, with a certain hesitation. “Why?”

“Nothing, there’s this movie I wanted to watch that was just released in cinemas, but my roommate is an ass once again and doesn’t want to go with me.” Jaebum can swear that he hears the said roommate’s protests, loudly expressed somewhere near Mark. “So I was wondering if you’d go with me. Going alone, even though kind of cool, probably would feel a little lonely.”

In the heat of the moment Jaebum doesn’t even ask what the movie is, because _holy shit Mark is asking him to go see a movie together_. The only question that manages to escape his lips is where and when are they supposed to meet and Mark tells that the movie starts at 9 PM, so they should meet an hour before it or so, meaning Jaebum has three whole hours to spend somewhere, because Mark apparently is on the other side of Seoul, out for an early dinner with his roommate and a few friends.

“Okay, then eight o’clock near your dorm?” Jaebum suggests and Mark, after a bit of thought, agrees, saying that he should make it on time.

Jaebum, after hanging up, doesn’t even notice that his cheeks are hurting due to excessive smiling.

 

Mark barely makes it to the dorm just in time to get a quick shower and change due to Bambam’s decision to drag him shopping (more commonly known as a torturing “hyung, I need your opinion on this, hey you didn’t even look, how can you say it looks good!” session in every possible store).

“Where are you going?” Bambam asks, taking the things he bought out of the bags, watching how hurriedly Mark is going through his wardrobe while blow drying his hair and cursing, because he has only fifteen minutes left.

“To watch a movie.” Mark responds, almost tripping over the cord of the hair dryer.

“With?”

“A friend, you heard us talking over the phone earlier.”

It immediately catches Bambam’s attention, because usually Mark tells who’s he going out with specifically, so with a dumb (in Mark’s opinion) smirk plastered on his face, he teases, “Is that a date?”

Mark shakes his head so hard, he almost hits it on the door of his still open wardrobe. “It’s not.” For some unfortunate reason his cheeks still flame up in red, totally against his will.

He truly didn’t think about it as a date or something, when he asked if Jaebum wants to tag along. He just invited _a friend_ to watch a movie together, nothing more; that’s far from a date in his opinion. And besides, why would he ask Jaebum out on a _date_?

However, Bambam, looking at Mark being all red and embarrassed, draws all the wrong conclusions. He critically watches how his roommate picks worn out blue jeans and some t-shirt, then he sighs. “Is that what you’re going to wear to a date?”

“It’s not a date, Christ.” Mark repeats, trying to emphasize every word and throwing clothes on himself as fast as possible, because he’s definitely going to be late; but Bambam doesn’t leave him any hope to be let go of so easily.

“Sweetie, _no,_ you’re not going out dressed like that.” Mark hates when Bambam starts talking in this manner, like a parent whose child would be doing something very obviously stupid, but adorable nevertheless. The younger doesn’t care about the protests though, standing up and inspecting the contents of his roommate’s wardrobe, picking clothes here and there and stuffing them into Mark’s arms. “Here, not a miracle, but still better than whatever you’re wearing now.”

“Bam, I don’t have time to change.” Mark wails, knowing that his roommate won’t back off until he follows his orders. “And I’m _not_ going to watch a movie with a low cut shirt, are you crazy?” Mark actually doesn’t even remember having it, the shirt probably being one of the many clothes he bought so that Bambam would stop pestering him whenever they go shopping. The younger’s stare doesn’t budge though, so Mark sighs. “Okay I’m changing the jeans, but I’m _not_ wearing that shirt.”

Bambam looks satisfied with this conclusion, so he lets the elder go change, and by now Mark is terribly late, running flights of stairs down instead of waiting for an elevator. When he finally runs outside, trying to push through a mass of second year girls who always seem to appear in huge flocks, Jaebum, of course, is already there with a phone in his hand, probably about to text Mark asking where is his late ass.

“Sorry.” Mark pants out, completely out of breath. “My roommate held me up.”

Jaebum doesn’t say anything for a while, looking at him with a slight surprise he’s trying to hide. Mark and ripped black jeans, a bit tight in all the right places, apparently is a very nice combination that he hasn’t thought about before; this weirds him out a little, but Jaebum decides that it’s not a bad thought. He’s allowed to objectively judge that Mark looks hot dressed like that, isn’t he?

_Hot._

_Oh._

All the absolutely unnecessary thoughts are soon pushed out of his head as he only smiles like a dumbass and shakes his head. “It’s okay, but we should hurry up.”

They look a bit mismatched, Mark with his kind of not-for-every day attire and Jaebum wearing the same red hoodie and blue jeans he left home in this morning, but none of them pay attention to it, busy with a conversation that lasts all the way to a cinema, and that’s more than twenty minutes by feet of not shutting up even for a moment – a thing they’re both not really keen on if it happens when they’re not together.

When they finally reach the place and buy tickets, however, Jaebum starts rethinking his life choices, since the movie Mark’s dragging him to turns out to be a horror movie, and he’s not a fan of those, at all.

But he decides to suck it up, because _how bad can a horror movie be_ , and doesn’t say anything, just nods at Mark loudly contemplating whether they should buy two smaller packs of popcorn or one big to share, since the latter one seems cheaper. Mark reads Jaebum's nod however he wants and they buy the big one while Jaebum is trying to calm himself down, feeling not ready for a horror movie at all.

It starts off pretty okay, with Mark complaining about commercials that last too long, a few occasional flinches after some jump scares in the movie. It’s all fine up until the middle of the movie, when the plot gets to its maximum intensity and Jaebum chokes on air after seeing a person grossly killed on the screen.

To justify his choking, he pretends it’s because of the popcorn, and to prove it for someone, his hand reaches for a few more in the bag, however, it’s met with an unexpected occurrence – Mark is reaching for them at the same time and their fingers touch for a moment; for a moment a little too long for it not to get awkward. Mark turns to him with a light smile, somewhat awkward as well, but it soon turns into a frown of concern as he asks, “You okay? You seem a little pale.”

It’s probably really obvious if Mark can see that in the dark, but Jaebum heroically (read: stupidly) says he’s fine. If he came here, he’s going to finish this damn movie no matter what it takes. Mark seems to be buying it, only glancing at this friend a little bit more often now.

After a particularly bloody scene with even more decapitated bodies though, Jaebum is obviously unwell, sitting with his eyes tightly shut and with cold sweat forming on his forehead. His breathing is heavy too, and Mark seeing all this, doesn’t ask anything anymore, just grabs his friend’s hand and walks him out of the cinema.

Jaebum feels like he’s finally able to breathe properly only when they’re outside, with a lukewarm late evening’s breeze caressing his skin and calming him down. His eyes are still closed though, as if he’s come all the way here like that, only with Mark guiding him out.

“How do you feel?” Mark asks worried, handing him a bottle of water that seems like appeared out of nowhere. “Why didn’t you tell me you can’t watch horror movies, I wouldn’t have asked you to go.”

“I though I’m going to be fine.” Jaebum mumbles, downing half of the bottle in one go, his throat feeling as dry as a desert. “Seems like I underestimated the movie.”

His voice sounds slightly humorous, but Mark is still worried. “Do you want me to accompany you home or something?”

“No, it’s okay.” Jaebum shakes his head, feeling a little better, well, at least his knees aren’t shaking as much anymore. “I asked my dad to pick me up after the movie, since he had to stay late at work, so I guess I’ll just call him now.”

Mark doesn’t know what exactly, maybe the way Jaebum still looks helplessly scared while talking with his dad on the phone, or the way he hugs his knees while sitting down on a bench nearby, makes him want to do something, anything. He feels guilty, because in the end, it’s his fault that they were in that movie to begin with, so he does the first thing that comes to his mind – and that’s hugging Jaebum.

His mother always said that hugs make people feel better and Mark hopes it works now, too; the hug is clumsy and somewhat ungraceful, a little too out of the blue, but Jaebum doesn’t say anything, drained out by the fear he just felt during the movie, so he doesn’t know what he’s doing either, asides that tiny annoying voice in the back of his head telling that burying his face in Mark’s shoulder probably isn’t the most usual thing to do.

Jaebum’s dad pulls his car over in the parking lot near the cinema good fifteen minutes later, when the hug is long broken and Jaebum is feeling better, though for some reason the latter keeps pulling on those loose threads of the holes in Mark’s jeans. Mark finds that a little strange, but by that time he’s so unknowingly down for anything if that makes the younger feel calmer and distracted from whatever bad thoughts, he doesn’t mind.

“Text me when you get home.” Mark says, waving Jaebum off after greeting his father. The younger nods and tries to smile back, but the smile isn’t quite there yet.

Mark, walking back to the dorm, keeps thinking about two things – the guilt about the night ending like this, that’s eating him away already, and the fact that he actually _liked_ the feeling of hugging Jaebum.

Jaebum, only his way back to Goyang, keeps clutching a black thread that he accidentally ripped out of Mark’s jeans in his hand, still feeling the warmth of Mark’s arms around him. He liked the feeling as well, but feels too tired to think about it right now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all those movie date cliches lmao even though markbum don't really realize that it was supposed to be a date after all, if only jaebum wasn't such a scaredy-cat. (tho i wouldn't blame him, the last horror movie mark has told to have watched in some interview, was truly... unsettling. and i like horror movies.)  
> anyway, i hope you liked it, and as always comments are always welcomed!


	7. Chapter 7

They say bad things always come in threes, and Mark could probably agree with this to some extent; his and Jaebum’s threes turn out to be a combination of Jinyoung, Jackson and alcohol.

It happens two weeks after the infamous _not-a-date_ date in the cinema, after Jaebum finally gets back to his usual self, not dreaming nightmares anymore, and not texting Mark in the middle of the night because he’s afraid to go to sleep (all of this unsuccessfully disguised as a simple insomnia before midterms; Mark has an idea what’s going on, but doesn’t comment on it, still feeling guilty, and lets Jaebum fall asleep during their phone calls that last till 5 AM. Bambam is less than thrilled about those).

They start that day by being stuck in the library because their astronomy assignment is due on Sunday evening, as well as a whole bunch of their other homework. Both Mark and Jaebum are a little (read:  very) stressed about it, fingers quickly flying across their laptop keyboards in complete silence. The only times they open their mouths are to ask each other some essential things about the assignment, such as who’s responsible for which part or would professor Yang notice if they made the text font slightly bigger.

It all goes relatively smoothly, until Jinyoung decides to join the scene again, much like the previous time. Jaebum and Mark are ready to be interrupted every five minutes, but this time their friend is not into games, crushed by deadlines again and with dark eye circles so bad, saying he hasn’t slept for at least three days wouldn’t really be a stretch.

Surprisingly, Jinyoung doesn’t bother them at all, instead of speaking he drops his backpack next to them completely wordlessly. Mark and Jaebum just watch how he takes a bunch of books and his laptop out and starts working on something, something that seems like a very long essay.

It feels a little bit weird, because Jinyoung gives them some glances from time to time, as if he would be observing them, even though he always makes it on time to minimize the window he’s working on before the two guys manage to peak at his secret assignment.

Jaebum soon decides that it’s enough work after spending whole three minutes trying to paste this weird photo of moon into their assignment without distorting it and stretches out in the chair. His gaze slides onto Jinyoung who’s almost sleeping next to his laptop, the second cup of coffee the guy’s drinking being so close to spilling. Then his stare shifts to Mark, who’s frowning, loudly contemplating whether it counts as a plagiarism or not if he changes the first two words of a sentence.

There were a lot more important things to think about for the past two weeks, and Jaebum gladly used them to avoid sorting out the mess in his brain, however, now that all the homework and assignments are slowly coming to an end, he can’t help but remember himself wondering if Mark is seeing someone.

Now that he knows Mark is single, Jaebum _still_ doesn’t know what to do with this information, even though the answer is supposedly right in front of his eyes – almost everyone they know have asked if they’re dating a few times already.

Going to grab some coffee together, getting lunch together, getting dinner together – there’s so little things they’re not doing together, from a perspective of others it might seem like they’re a couple who have been dating for ages, and Jaebum must say it’s a weird feeling. He doesn’t know where this feeling is coming from, it feels like he would be in a dream where you can’t really point out the beginning of it, you just have to deal with the given facts.

And the given fact that strikes Jaebum in the library that afternoon is that he likes Mark. A lot.

It takes a snap of Mark’s fingers in front of his eyes for Jaebum to finally get back to reality from his inner turmoil, and he just mumbles an incoherent, “Yeah, I— What?”

“Nothing, you were staring into a void in kind of a creepy way.” Mark laughs at this, rubbing his eyes, because he feels just as tired, not really used to spend his free Fridays studying this much. “I think we should just call it a day and return to it tomorrow or something. I just deleted an entire paragraph that had only one word pasted all over. And Jinyoung fell asleep too.” He lowers his voice in order not to wake up the latter.

“You wish.” A slurred mumble emerges from the mess that’s Jinyoung, who has his head hidden under a hood of the hoodie he’s wearing and his face planted into the desk. “I just closed my eyes for a while, I’m almost done with this shit.”

Jaebum closes his laptop and yawns out, “Good for you.”

“So, what are you guys planning for today?” Jinyoung asks, pushing his things aside, noticeably livelier when he doesn’t need to do any academic stuff anymore.

“What are we planning for today?” It feels absolutely natural, the most usual thing to ask when Mark turns to Jaebum. The latter doesn’t even bat an eyelash, they’re too used to address it as “we” whenever they need to make such important decisions as weekend plans, which, undoubtedly, involve them being together anyway.

Jaebum shrugs, because he doesn’t have anything specific in mind, and Jinyoung rolls his eyes at this sickeningly domestic scene, trying to make his paranoia shut up and remember Jackson telling him to leave the two guys alone, so he tells only, “There’s a party tonight at one of my friend’s place, it’s next to the university. If you don’t have anything better to do, we can meet there.”

“I honestly don’t think I want to be somewhere with loud music and drunk people.” Mark says, fighting another urge to yawn and Jinyoung only sighs.

“You sound like an eighty year old. Come on, enjoy your life for once. Jackson’s coming as well so we can just have a little bit of fun together before the next week.”

Jaebum seems like he’s actually considering the idea, though he already knows how hard Jinyoung and his friends party, but that doesn’t stop him from turning to Mark and saying, “Well, I mean, we could just show up for a few drinks or something, nothing that loud. It’s more fun than rotting away at home, anyway.”

Jinyoung widely smiles, already knowing it’s all settled, because Mark definitely won’t be able to say no if Jaebum decides to go; and that’s how they decide to show up at that party, swearing that it’s going to be just a few drinks.

Looking back at it they probably wouldn’t believe how wrong they were.

 

It’s nothing new, just your usual college party with someone’s family being out of the city for the night, so there’s a whole lot of students cramped in some apartment. The party is on the way to its peak when Mark gets there around 10 PM, without Jaebum, because the latter just texted him that there’s some shit going on with subways, so he’s taking a bus and probably will be late. That doesn’t sit very well with Mark, because technically, he doesn’t even know whose party it is, nor anyone from the mass of people here, asides Jackson and Jinyoung, who, most decidedly, aren’t anywhere around either.

Luckily, it takes only five minutes or so of awkwardly walking around someone’s house like a creep trying to find his friends and hide his nervous glancing at the phone every few seconds to check if there are some news from Jaebum until Jinyoung finally appears right in front of him with two beer cans.

“I could smell the awkwardness from the other side of the flat, knew it was either you or Jaebum.” Jinyoung says, handing one of the cans to Mark and opening one himself. He’s a tad bit too happy for it to be not induced by alcohol and Mark just makes a face at him. “Anyway, where’s your date?”

“Jaebum is not my date.” Mark says, for some reason extremely defensively, deciding that it’s a somewhat better idea to avoid the topic by opening his beer, however, the can seems to be quite shaken thanks to Jinyoung’s carelessness and now he has the latter rolling his eyes for the second time, a stained shirt and wet floor. No one pays any attention to what just happened, so Mark gladly brushes it off as well.

Jinyoung victoriously smirks, though. “How do you know I was talking about him?”

“Last week you didn’t want us to breathe the same air, what do you look so excited for now?” Mark mumbles, trying to change the topic again and hide his blushing cheeks. Actually, Jinyoung thinks, he has a point there, but it’s probably the alcohol talking, and Mark’s suffering is soon put to an end because Jackson appears next to them basically out of nowhere.

He’s hanging onto Mark’s shoulder like a big overgrown puppy full of drunken affection, despite the fact that he and Mark know each other only through those irregular meetings when they would go out all three, Jinyoung being kind of a middle ground between them. “Jackson, please, I still need my shoulder intact and not broken.”

Jaebum comes only before midnight, all out of breath and tired already, because apparently in the end he missed the bus he was to supposed to transfer to and ended up walking the remaining distance by feet; if the universe was sending signs that maybe it’s better to rethink going to this party, it might’ve been one.

However, none of them pay much attention to it, now engaging into some loud discussion – a few minutes later they don’t even know anymore what exactly they’re arguing about, one beer can gets followed by another, and then another one; someone announces it’s beer pong time and Jackson blows his friends an air kiss to excuse himself to defend his champion title. Jinyoung sarcastically scoffs at some dude who throws his arm around Jackson’s shoulders; Mark and Jaebum don’t bring it up, but it’s obvious that there’s something interesting happening between those two as well.

Soon, beer is exchanged to soju and a few quick shots later Jinyoung gets up on his feet looking very angry and dramatic, much to Mark’s suspicions that he’s going to roast Jackson’s ass for dancing with some girl; none of them wants to witness it, so Jaebum grabs a few more bottles of soju from somewhere and they shut themselves in one of the rooms, probably the only one that isn’t occupied yet, shamelessly setting up their residence in bed.

“Do you think there’s something happening between Jackson and Jinyoung?” Mark asks after the first shot, the question followed by stupid giggling, since they’re already more than halfway to getting hammered – beer and soju isn’t the smartest choice, especially on an empty stomach.

“Definitely.” Jaebum answers, lying flat on the bed and staring at the ceiling as if he would be searching for something there. He doesn’t look drunk at all, only his slightly slurred speech gives him away, and Mark, looking at him, remembers something.

“What Jackson was talking about when earlier he said you were trying to search for my inexistent boyfriend though?”

Truth is, it’s a thought that’s been bugging Mark the entire time ever since he heard it. It felt weird and somehow unsettling, and at first he drank only to wash it out of his brain to avoid overthinking, but now, when they’re all alone with a big chance they won’t remember this conversation in the morning, it seems like the most perfect timing.

Except that it’s not, because Jaebum chokes on his shot due to this unexpected confrontation and Mark’s now busy hitting his back than getting answers. After the coughs finally stop, Jaebum, feeling the alcohol still burning his throat and nose, inspired by some drunk courage, admits. “I asked Jinyoung if you’re seeing someone now.”

Mark has to take a second to digest this whole new piece of information thrown at him so suddenly; needless to say, it’s hard when the sight in front of him is already blurry and mind is clouded. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” Jaebum slurs, taking another shot like his life would depend on it. And he truly doesn’t know, these past weeks he had no clue what he’s feeling and why, but now, exactly now, this second, under a heavy influence of that beer and soju, he feels it very clearly.

He knows what he’s feeling, but still has no clue how to voice it out.

“I—“

Mark shakes his head, pressing his finger against Jaebum’s lips, what makes them both kind of fuzzy, since they were never this nonchalant about physical contact. “I mean, why didn’t you ask me directly?”

“Oh.” Jaebum mumbles, closing his eyes and sighing in relief, feeling relieved that Mark doesn’t seem taken aback. “But I asked, that night when you were sleeping at my place.”

“You did?” Mark frowns, trying hard to remember, but it’s met with a failure. And a sneeze, it’s kind of _his_ thing when he’s drunk to his limit. “I don’t remember that. Anyway, just to be clear. I’m not seeing anyone.” The ending sounds a little suggestive for some reason as if Mark is waiting for some obvious follow up to this sentence.

But the only thing to happen is Jaebum’s snoring, because he unceremoniously passed out from all the alcohol. Mark only laughs at this, because everything’s too funny when they’re together, but it’s also cute – Jaebum sleeping is cute, and Mark lies down next to him, to nap a few minutes. They can get out of here when they sober up a little.

Jaebum wakes up after a few hours, with early sunrays teasing his eyes and Mark comfortably snuggling against his chest, what almost makes his heart to jump out. He likes the feeling, but it scares him at the same time, because _they were too drunk to think, maybe it’s just an accident, maybe Mark did that unknowingly, maybe—_

His thoughts get scattered by Mark obviously waking up as well, so Jaebum removes himself from the bed as soon as possible. Mark, still feeling drunk and contemplating that Jaebum should go back to the dorm with him instead of trying to get back to Goyang at this ungodly hour, doesn’t seem to notice anything unusual.

Jaebum wants to refuse this offer, because sleeping at Mark’s dorm would be too much, besides his roommate probably wouldn’t be happy either, but Mark cuts him off, already decided.

“Bambam’s out of the dorm for the weekend, so shut your mouth. You’re not going back home half-drunk and alone.”

They stumble out of the room, to their surprise seeing some people still not passed out, Jackson and a few of his friends, namely; Jinyoung is located on the couch and is not quite awake to add to the suggestive looks they get at their disheveled hair and messy appearances.

Jackson is the first one to greet them, gluing himself to Mark’s side again, saying, “You look good.” His speech screams that he’s so drunk he’s about to pass out any second and it’s a bit hard to understand what’s going on, but from the way Jackson is acting and how some people around them seem to be anticipating something, Mark understands it’s a game of some sorts and that he’s supposed to show a certain “right” reaction.

However, nothing comes into his head asides, “You look good too?”

Jackson gets visibly disappointed and tries again. “I like you.” He’s persistently give him _the_ look, a look Mark probably wouldn’t understand even after a whole day of sleep, so it’s not a surprised that his “I like you too” is met with Jackson’s even more disappointed wail and a round of laughter from everyone else.

“You were supposed to say you love me, you ass, thanks a lot.” Jackson slurs. “Now I’ll have to get a penalty. No, you know what, you were the one to fail me, so get that damn penalty instead of me.”

At first Mark tries to argue, because who the hell answers _I love you_ to “you look good” anyway? But Jaebum gestures him not to waste time if they want to get out of here sooner, so he lets the whole mass of still awake people to drag him away to give him a task. Mark is unsuspecting, not even bothered, because the worst penalty will probably be to drink a glass of every possible drink they’ll find mixed together, or something like that.

Jokes on him, penalties these days are wilder than he’s used to.

“So fast?” Jaebum asks, when he finally returns; he decided to go to the bathroom to wash his face and try to look at least a bit more presentable while others are making Mark’s life miserable. He tries to ignore weird glares of people who are not as subtle as they would like to be and asks again, “What was the penalty?”

Mark only sighs and shoots Jaebum an apologetic stare as if trying to say something; he still feels the shot of soju he took for the sake of courage on his lips, then he decides just to get it done and hope that Jaebum won’t hate him after it.

It’s not really a surprise that when Mark kisses Jaebum, the younger gets completely caught off guard, stumbling a bit, because Mark clearly miscalculates the force he needs to lean in. Mark’s lips have a bitter taste, thanks to alcohol, and the kiss is slightly too messy considering they’re both still drunk.

Mark backs away quickly and the entire room is painfully silent, even Jinyoung, who just woke up to witness the kiss without any backstory, keeps his mouth shut waiting for Jaebum’s reaction.

“Is that it, that’s the penalty?” He asks, looking at Mark who seems like he’s about to poof into the air from embarrassment.

After getting a confirmation, Jaebum keeps silent. Jokes aside, the kiss makes him think, even clearer than before, making everything so obvious.

If before he didn’t know what to do with his newly founded feelings, now it’s ridiculously clear – he likes Mark Tuan and he liked the kiss. The same realization hits Mark too when Jaebum kisses him back, completely unbothered by all the people and Jinyoung, getting more and more mortified, realizing what’s happening here.

Both of them think they could do these kind of penalties every day as they’re walking back to Mark’s dorm. The weather is warm and early birds are paving the way for them with their songs; the dormitory is not that far, but Jaebum feels like he could walk back to Goyang if only Mark kept holding his hand like that, making him feel so ridiculously light and happy.

They say bad things always come in threes, but Jinyoung and Jackson could be counted as one anyway since they were making out when Mark and Jaebum finally left the party; them and alcohol makes only two, and two negatives make a positive.

Mark, trying to figure out how to share one single dorm bed with Jaebum thinks that the outcome of this party is definitely positive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mark clearly underestimated the holy trinity of jinyoung, mistakes and secrets for those unlucky threes tbh, but that's for a near future. 
> 
> anyway, friendzone is over even if it took only an almost-alcohol poisoning !! let's hope it won't go to waste, it would be.. a pity... if something happened :)))  
> jokes aside, i hope you liked the chapter, and comments are always welcomed!
> 
> this was lowkey written while listening to jessica's summer storm, sad lyrics aside, it just sounds really nice.


	8. Chapter 8

“For god’s sake, stop being so gross.” Jinyoung sighs, throwing the nearest paper tissue at them and pretending to be vomiting into his plate.

All four of them – Jackson, him, Jaebum and Mark – agreed to grab some food, conveniently avoiding a double date title, a week after the infamous party, all the assignments turned in and most of the midterms already over. Jaebum and Mark, in Jinyoung’s poor opinion, keep doing nothing else but being like twelve year olds crushing on someone for the first time, not separating even for a second; it looks like someone spilled a whole tube of superglue on their palms and stuck them together, because they held hands like twenty four-seven. The thing that made Jinyoung complain this time was Mark, sneaking a peck on Jaebum’s cheek while the latter was busy eating.

It _is_ cute, he has to give them at least that, it’s been a long time since Jinyoung last saw someone so in love with each other. But at the same time he feels like this entire relationship is a mere treading on eggshells, knowing the origins of it way too well for Jinyoung’s liking.

But more than cute, it’s _gross_.

“Don’t be so jealous.” Jaebum laughs back, taking the tissue his friend just threw at him to clean up the water he accidentally spilled. “I’m getting concerned, you’re so cranky people could think Jackson doesn’t do his thing as your boyfriend properly.”

“Excuse you, that’s one of the many things in the category ‘It’s none of your business, Im Jaebum’.” Jackson fires back, returning with a huge cup of hot chocolate, because it’s exactly what Jinyoung demanded him to get after they basically inhaled two big bowls of noodles. “But since we’re speaking about that, did you guys already—“

It’s Mark turn to feel totally disturbed and have his appetite ruined. “Okay, we’re not discussing each other’s sex lives in front of my salad. Besides, we’ve been dating for merely a week, I don’t think—“ from the way Jinyoung and Jackson exchange stares, he understands the underlying meaning of it. “ _Oh okay_. I see. I didn’t want to learn anything about it, thank you, but okay.”

“What did your parents say about all this?” Jinyoung asks, attempting to change the topic – comparing which couple started having sex earlier and is that decent enough, definitely isn’t the greatest topic to discuss in public, even if they’re all good friends. “Dating and stuff.”

“My dad said exactly the same like you would’ve said if you weren’t sleeping on the sofa hammered.” Mark laughed. “He started lecturing me about the birds and the bees out of all things. All of this, of course, while my phone was on the speaker and Jaebum was next to me, you know, for that extra embarrassment.” He shivers, remembering the conversation and how much he prayed that his dad would stop talking, because his cheeks were about to flame up in real fire. “And during the summer holiday we will probably go to the States together, if my family won’t want to come here, my mom said she wants to meet her future son-in-law.”

Telling about their relationship to Mark’s parents was a whole lot easier, mostly because of the distance that separated them, and the fact that if in the worst case scenario things would’ve gotten south, they could’ve just ended the conversation and try again when both of parties would be relatively calm – luckily, none of that was necessary, since Mark’s sister was already planning what dress will she wear during the wedding party.

Jaebum’s parents, on the other hand, were a lot more complicated case.

Mark couldn’t tell which one of them was shaking more, when they were taking the subway to Goyang. At some point Jaebum looked like he was nearing a panic attack and like he was about to jump out of the train in the nearest station and run away without looking back. It wasn’t because he thought his family will be against this relationship, in the end, they do adore Mark as if he was their own son, but…

The biggest problem was that Jaebum never talked with them about this entire loving guys thing, and the initial plan was to avoid this topic for as long as he could, but at the same time, he didn’t want to put Mark in an uncomfortable and awkward place, making it look like he was ashamed or something.

Jaebum’s parents met them completely clueless, only being told that Jaebum is bringing Mark over for dinner, which immediately made his mom beam in excitement, already planning countless of dishes to serve. It happened when they all were busy stuffing their mouths, when Jaebum’s mom suddenly put down her chopsticks and asked, “So, what do you have to tell us this time, son?”

Jaebum choked on his rice after being confronted so openly, the statement catching him off guard and spices burning his throat and nose, while Mark was hitting his back. “How… How do you know I have something to tell?”

“You have _the_ look.” His dad laughed and turned to Mark, which was just as confused as his boyfriend, to explain. “Ever since elementary school, when he would come back with an F or would get into some kind of trouble, he always has this certain look, it’s very obvious. That’s how we know that something isn’t right.”

On other occasions, if this was only a regular dinner, Mark would’ve thought it was cute and maybe would’ve even laughed or teased Jaebum for wearing his heart on his sleeve, but he was extremely uneasy and anxious himself, feeling the food getting stuck in his throat and knowing that this was it, the moment where everything will be told out loud, making it official, with no way back.

Jaebum kept looking at his food for a while, trying to find the most appropriate words for the situation. He didn’t know where to start from, he wondered if some sort of backstory was needed, but something in his mind, very typically, made a short circuit, and he blurted out a very blunt and relatively simple, “Mark and I… We’re dating.”

Spoon fell out Mark’s hand, with a loud pang hitting the floor, the sound of it resonating through the kitchen for some reason being extremely loud; he didn’t expect this entire situation to be put in words so straightforwardly, but now that it was there, lingering in the air, there was no reason to cry over spilled milk. They couldn’t do anything else but wait, feeling how blood was slowly freezing in their veins while they were waiting for any kind of reaction.

When it came, it was more than unexpected and not included in any possible scenario they were writing in their heads prior to the meeting.

“Finally.” Jaebum’s mom told, casually continuing to eat her soup and Jaebum’s jaw dropped at this. “I was afraid you’re going to end up all alone only with your cats. Mark, dear, put the spoon in the sink and take a new one if you need.”

Jaebum was shocked, to say the least. “You’re… okay with that?”

“I don’t see why we shouldn’t be?” Jaebum’s father said, standing up from the table after finishing his meal and searching for the newspaper he didn’t finish reading. “Mark looks like a nice guy, and well, we always had a feeling that you won’t bring a girl home. Don’t worry about that, son, if you like him, then there’s nothing for us to be not okay about.”

They both probably still looked totally stunned by this sudden twist, so Jaebum’s mother just laughed at them and told to finish their food before it got cold. Mark finally let out a sheepish smile, feeling Jaebum’s grabbing his palm under the table.

It wasn’t that bad like they expected it to be; it wasn’t bad at all.

 

“So you’re telling us that your parents knew that you’re gay all this time without you even telling? I don’t know if it’s nice or awkward, I mean I wonder what did you do for them to realize.” Jinyoung notes, finishing his hot chocolate in one go once the story is over. “But I guess that’s a happy ending anyway. Less awkward compared to what would happen if they walked in on you making out or something, which, knowing you, wouldn't have taken that long.”

Both Mark and Jaebum roll their eyes almost in sync at their friend’s pettiness, but don’t say anything. Jackson after a few minutes announces that he should be heading back to the dorm because he has a midterm tomorrow morning. Jinyoung spitefully laughs at it, telling how happy he is that he’s done with all his tests already.

“By the way, how did your paper do?” Jackson viciously smiles in response, because if he’s drowning in university misery, his date will be dragged down with him. A healthy and caring relationship, truly. “The one your psychology professor asked to expand?”

It, unfortunately, immediately catches Jaebum’s attention. “Oh yeah, Jackson mentioned something about you having to work on our interviews a little more. Do you need some help with that or something?”

Jinyoung mentally swears to kill Jackson in his sleep in the most cruel way he’ll come up with and forces out a smile. “Nah, thanks. I just created a bunch of answers instead, everything I needed to work on more was the theory part, so I took some stuff from books. No worries.” He finishes, a little stuttering evident in his voice and the last phrase directed more at himself than anyone else.

“Cool then, that one interview was too much already.” Mark laughs, searching for his phone.

“If it wasn’t for that interview, we wouldn’t have met, though.” Jaebum tells, making a disgustingly adorable pouty face and Mark leans in for another kiss to kiss away any sulkiness his boyfriend has.

Jinyoung starts to feel sick for a whole bunch of reasons, mostly because Jaebum has a point there, just not in the way he imagines.

They grab some bubble tea on their way back to the dorm and Jackson can’t get rid of this smirk after learning the fact that Jaebum’s staying on campus for the night, more specifically, staying at Mark’s room since Bambam can’t be less bothered by the midterm week and is out somewhere with his friends again. Jaebum, not feeling very into fueling his wildest theories, just smacks Jackson, what makes the latter spill a bit of tea all over himself and complain about it for the rest of the way back.

“So… About Mark…” Jinyoung carefully starts, when the guy in question gets a little too immersed in a discussion with Jackson about something, walking farther from them and obviously unable to hear anything else. Jaebum only stares at him, waiting to see where on earth this conversation is going to lead.

“What about him?”                    

Jinyoung doesn’t know where to start from, or why he’s having this conversation, or what he is even trying to say, but nevertheless, continues. “It kind of happened really suddenly, you know.”

His mind is already screaming _abort mission abort mission_ to him, because most definitely nothing good will come out of this talk, asides the fact it will probably make Jaebum doubt everything, but it’s too late to take the words back as the latter admits. “Yeah, it just… happened. It’s very strange to me too.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“It’s just… weird.” Jaebum tells, taking a sip of his bubble tea and flashing the widest smile at Mark who turns around to check if the two guys are still walking a good few meters behind him and Jackson. “I didn’t expect us to click so fast and so suddenly. One day we were doing that interview, then another one we were in the same class together, and then boom, suddenly he was sleeping at my place—“

“Pardon, _what?”_ Jinyoung can’t believe his ears, because he wasn’t informed about this particular sleepover, neither Jaebum nor Mark mentioned it ever before. “What do you mean by he was sleeping at your place?”

“After we ditched you sleeping in the library we went to my house to work on our project for that astronomy class. We got kind of distracted and without us knowing it was too late for him to go back to the dorm, so he stayed for the night. Is that really weird or something?” Jaebum asks, concerned. “I swear nothing happened that night, just—“

Jinyoung sighs; he himself isn’t sure what’s weird and what's not anymore. “No, it’s not, I just got surprised, since no one ever told me that.” Jaebum shoots him a questioning stare, as if asking why on earth they _should_ tell him things as private as that, but he doesn’t notice. “Well, I guess some people are just like that… put together by some weird forces.” Words get stuck in his throat, but thankfully they’re already near the dorms and need to separate, so his friend doesn’t notice anything weird.

 _Stop fucking this up_ , Jinyoung tells to himself and waves his friends off, Jaebum and Mark turning to go to a different building than him and Jackson.

  
Only two whole movies and a make out session Mark remembers something, turning at Jaebum who’s brushing his teeth next to him in the cramped bathroom of his room and asking, “What did you talk about with Jinyoung for so long?”

Jaebum for a second thinks about it, contemplating whether it’s worth mentioning, and then decides that there’s no actual need to get into details. “Just about weird things and accidents.”

Mark only laughs at it, not questioning anymore. “Yeah, sounds a whole lot like something Jinyoung would be interested in.”

They turn off the lights and snuggle under the blankets, finally figuring out the most optimal way to share a bed, since Jaebum isn’t really a fan of Bambam’s lair, like he calls it, full of bread crumbs and other questionable things; besides, sleeping together with Mark always feels like a so much better option.

However, that night, even when Mark finally falls asleep snuggled against his chest, Jaebum can’t fall asleep, being bugged by something.

Maybe Jinyoung _was_ right, maybe everything _was_ ridiculously sudden and not thought-out very well?

 

“Oh my fucking god, don’t tell me you actually talked with Jaebum about this.” Jackson tells, trying to somehow outvoice the sounds of a running shower, because Jinyoung is in the bathroom.

“So what if I did?” Jinyoung shouts back, turning off the water and silently cursing, as he almost slips on wet tiles. “It’s not like I told him the entire thing about the experiment.” He says defensively getting out of the bathroom with his pajamas on, getting ready to sleep as well.

“Yeah, you just casually and aggressively hinted that a relationship is too sudden and unnatural to a person who literally is head over heels for someone.” Jackson rolls his eyes. “Knowing Jaebum, he’s going to overthink it for days and weeks on end. If they break up, remember that we all will be hating you. Well, to be more exact, _I_ will hate you, because I’m the only one who knows how you’re involved in this.”

Jinyoung opens his laptop to check some things for the last time before sleeping and defensively mumbles. “They’re not breaking up because of this, and even if they do, it means all of this wasn’t real and strong enough to begin with. Anyway, don’t you have a midterm in the morning, why are you still here?”

Jackson just scoffs at this pathetic attempt to change the unpleasant topic and doesn’t say anything else asides, “Someone’s got to keep you company here, Mr. _I’m so fancy I don’t have a roommate and live all by myself_.”

“Shut up, being the floor’s RA has some perks. If not for that, I probably would be dying in some triple room or something.” Jinyoung says, leaning back for a quick kiss from Jackson as the latter says that he’s going to use the bathroom and then go to his room.

Jinyoung quickly skims through the evening news and checks the group chat of the dormitory RAs, but it’s dead silent – nothing new and important is happening, seem like this week will continue being a very quiet one, with everyone trying not to die from the amount of midterms and other assignments. He logs into his university mail last, to check if one of his classes is still cancelled because the professor has been sick for the past two weeks, but his heart drops a little when he sees an email from professor Yang, the same one who asked for that stupid cognitive psychology paper.

“Okay, I’m going and don’t you dare to pester them anymore.” Jackson jokes, having Jaebum and Mark in mind, but Jinyoung stops him, for some reason not having a good feeling about this letter.

“Wait.”

“I thought you wanted me gone out of here?” Jackson teases but from Jinyoung’s face he sees that some shit just went down real quick. “What are you looking at?”

He wordlessly pushes his laptop closer for Jackson to read and the latter curses. Jinyoung rubs his eyes, because he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to act now and how to get out of this.

 _Dear Jinyoung,_ the letter says.

_I've read your paper and made some corrections, but those aside, it sounds like a quite solid study for a university student._

_There’s a conference organized by our university and taking place in Seoul around two weeks later, for psychology students to present some of their researches and so on, I would like you to participate as well. I already registered you for your presentation and don’t worry about the classes you are going to miss, everything is taken care of, also, I’m sure we could agree on an A+ for this with your term paper supervisor._

_That being said, before we start preparing for the conference, I’d like to meet the students who were interviewed for this research, just to get to know them, since they might need to participate too as they are a vital part of the experiment and this entire study._

_Good luck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> truly, good luck jinyoung lmao everything's gonna go downhill starting from this, i suppose  
> also when did this fic turn into jinson as a sidepair, this was not intended. salad meme was, though. 
> 
> i hope you liked and as always, comments are very welcomed!


	9. Chapter 9

“I thought it’s my thing to do.” Jinyoung notes when Mark wordlessly dumps his lunch tray on a table in the university’s café the next day with such force, his rice bowl almost falls off.

Despite his calm voice, trying to sound even humorous instead of strained with tension, Jinyoung’s heart sinks seeing his friend, because he still hasn’t come up with a solution for that damn conference. He and Jackson spent almost the entire night awake trying to think of a plan which would result in less trouble and broken friendships, however to no avail.

Jackson didn’t really fancy his initial decision to immediately drop out of the university altogether (“If I’m not a student anymore, there’s no reason for me to attend a _student_ conference, right?” He asks Jackson at 1 AM.), nor did he agree to help Jinyoung break a leg or acquire any other similar injury (“Your professor would still ask you to send Mark and Jaebum there, so no point.” Jackson says and Jinyoung has to agree.)

They were trying see how various schemes would work, they were legit drawing them on sheets of paper as if they were playing a game of some sorts, but the only logical conclusion was always the same – no matter the situation, Mark and Jaebum has to know what happened during that interview. So Jackson, leaving his room at 7 AM knowing very well that he hadn’t studied anything for his midterm thanks to Jinyoung’s personal dramas, told him to think of a way to tell them by the end of this week.

However, now there are more important things than that – for example, finding out why Mark has got a face like a wet weekend.

“So… What’s up?” Jinyoung asks cautiously, because despite the whole wet weekend thing going on with his face, Mark also looks like he’s ready to throw something at a few loud freshmen who are yelling in order to communicate from the opposite sides of the cafeteria; that’s almost weird, since Mark usually doesn’t give a shit about noise. And then Jinyoung makes a mistake by carelessly adding, “Where’s Jaebum?”

If at first Mark was attacking his food like it has personally offended him or like he hasn’t eaten for the past three weeks, so that he would be able to keep himself occupied from his thoughts at least with something, now he stops eating completely, putting his chopsticks with such strange calmness to his motions, it’s actually a little scary how unnatural it seems.

“I don’t know.” Mark tells just as calmly, almost matter-of-factly, pushing his food around in the plate to form some kind of a weird ornament. And only then Jinyoung notices this specific undertone to his words; he has never heard it coming from Mark ever before in this context, but it’s similar to… passive aggressiveness and… sulkiness? “I haven’t seen him today.”

“I thought you were together last night?” Jinyoung wants to bite his tongue off, seeing how Mark’s face changes into even sadder and lost one, if that’s even possible at this point.

However, Mark’s voice is the complete opposite, still trying to hold the illusion that he’s not bothered. And absolutely failing. “When I woke up he was already gone, I don’t know.”

“Maybe he had morning classes and didn’t want to wake you up?”

“Yeah, because morning classes these days start at 6:30 AM, sure.” Mark snorts and finally lets it go – it’s kind of a _his_ thing; you need only to pull one tiny thread and the rest will follow naturally. “He’s just acting weird, ever since yesterday evening. We watched some movies together and stuff, made out a bit later, but all that time seemed out of it, you know? Like… Like he wouldn’t even be there. He probably thinks I didn’t notice, but well, newsflash, I did.”

Jinyoung feels like he’s either about to scream his lungs off or pull his hair out, because Jackson’s words start mercilessly echo in his head – about him probably fucking things up even more with that conversation he had with Jaebum; about Mark and Jaebum getting into a fight over this; about Jaebum overthinking everything – all the scariest scenarios are writing themselves in Jinyoung’s head so smoothly as if he’s a writer. He can already imagine his friends breaking up because of his stupidity, or in some way finding out about the experiment, if not both of these options at the same time – and then, Jinyoung’s sure, it wouldn’t be Jackson finally accepting his idea to break a leg. Just two ex-lovers thirsty for blood, and not without a reason.

“Maybe he was just tired, that’s why he acted weird. We came back pretty late.” Jinyoung says, in attempt to do some damage control. “It doesn’t really mean anything.”

For a while Mark sits still and quiet, thinking about everything, all the moments of this entire shitty day flashing in front of his eyes. At first, he didn’t even understand what was wrong when he woke up in the morning – something just felt weird and unusual even before Mark opened his eyes. And that unusual thing was Jaebum’s absence in Mark’s bed. The latter, still more than half asleep and about to doze off again, thought that his boyfriend was in the bathroom or something, but eventually he made sure that no one was in the room, not even Bambam was there yet.

To say that Mark was confused would’ve been an understatement, but he still naively thought it may have been something very urgent and Jaebum just didn’t want to bother him by waking him up. However, the time was passing and all Mark’s messages, one more worried than another, went unanswered and calls kept getting declined. To finish everything and cut the cord within him, while going to a class, Mark saw Jaebum passing in a corridor with a bunch of his coursemates, seemingly happy and unbothered – meaning that there was absolutely no important reason for him to ignore Mark so blatantly.

“Maybe… Maybe you mistook him for someone else?” Jinyoung’s attempts to calm him down are getting more desperate after his friend finally explodes in a rant, but Mark only laughs at this, as if it is the most ridiculous thing to say in a situation like that. And it probably is.

“I think my eyesight is good enough to distinguish my own so-called boyfriend from other people, thanks.” He mumbles, violently stabbing a piece of cucumber in his plate, as if it would be the culprit of this whole mess. And then Mark suddenly comes up with a conclusion, it’s kind of dumb and absolutely baseless, but the only one he can think of anyway. “Do you think it’s because everything is going too fast?”

Honestly, at this point Jinyoung wants to be that cucumber Mark just stabbed, and he’s not even being dramatic about that (well, maybe a little). It’s kind of strange how the same thought is spinning in the heads of two different people, but more than strange, it is terrifying – because it’s nothing but a confirmation coming from both Jaebum and Mark, a confirmation Jinyoung is afraid of the most – they are definitely noticing that something isn’t right here, even if they don’t know what exactly they’re noticing.

Jinyoung doesn’t answer anything to it at first, hoping that the silence will sit well with his friend, and surprisingly it does – Mark doesn’t even wait for an answer of some sorts, just continues with his monologue. “I’ve been thinking about this for the entire day, and it makes sense, doesn’t it? We’re dating for a week, maybe a little more than that and yet we both have already met each other’s parents in one way or another and talked with them about our relationship. Hell, my parents even invited Jaebum to spend his summer holidays in the States with us, like… After a week of dating? Who does that? At this rate, we’ll end up marrying next month.”

“And… is that a problem?” Jinyoung asks, sounding a little too humorous and teasing against his will, but from the way Mark sighs, burying his face in his palms, it’s pretty obvious that there might be some sort of a problem after all.

“ _I don’t know_.” Mark’s words are a little difficult to decipher, since he’s now rubbing his face in frustration, feeling like suddenly he doesn’t know anything anymore. “It just feels like a whole mess in my head, and I don’t even know if it’s because there’s something wrong with Jaebum, or me, or both of us. Or maybe every couple is like that, I have no clue. Do you ever feel something like that with Jackson?”

Jinyoung wants to say that every couple is different, so there’s no reason for Mark to be asking about them, but in the end, he has to admit – when it comes to him and Jackson, there’s always been some certain feeling of clarity. They’ve known each other for the most part of their student life, sticking together from the very first days, making it three whole years; them becoming something more than just college buddies simply felt natural, like it was supposed to end like that, and neither Jinyoung nor Jackson ever had to question what on earth is going on.

And this realization is scary, because it confirms Jinyoung’s inner fears even more – Mark and Jaebum are feeling like this because of that stupid mistake, the whole experiment; and the upcoming thirty minutes both of the friends spend fueling each other’s anxieties – Jinyoung by trying to avoid clear comparison and Mark by loudly doubting everything that has happened during the bigger part of this semester.  

“What’s up with those long faces?” Their self-pitying hour is disturbed by Jackson, who just entered the cafeteria.

“Have you seen Jaebum today?” Mark asks.

Despite all the subtle signals coming from Jinyoung, and not so subtle ones, such as “accidentally” smacking his head to shut up, Jackson’s answer is unsuspectingly confident and clear. “Yeah, bumped into him earlier today, seemed like he decided to ditch his remaining classes and go somewhere with his friends.” Mark’s facial expression hardens at it and Jinyoung lets out a weird sound, neither a wail nor a grunt; Jackson continues to be absolutely oblivious as to what’s happening, joking, “How can you not know where your boyfriend is, you’re, like, inseparable.”

“Jackson Wang, shut up.” Jinyoung mumbles, and only then Jackson realizes, shooting his classic _“where the fuck did you screw up now, Jinyoung?”_ look.

 

Jaebum knows he’s being a coward – and yet he can’t help it.

He spent the entire night completely awake, not closing his eyes even for a second and rolling from one side to another, trying to somehow not wake Mark up and let him know what kind of chaos was going through his mind. Jaebum knew Mark would’ve noticed it in a heartbeat, he was observant as that.

Saying that Jinyoung’s words created a storm in his mind wouldn’t show the exact degree of what was happening – Jaebum was on the verge of legit panic thinking that maybe indeed everything is happening ridiculously too fast, making him doubt the realness of their feelings. Sure, soulmates probably do exist or something, but they are dating for merely a week and know each other for a few months in total – and yet they have already formally introduced themselves to each other’s families and Mark’s parents seemed to be completely serious when they invited him to spend his holidays in LA. What’s next at this point? _Getting married by the end of the next month?_

So Jaebum, of course, made a decision that seemed the most appropriate for the situation (and the most stupid one, he’s finally starting to realize it) – he took his things and disappeared from his boyfriend’s room at 6 AM together with the first rays of sun. Security guard of the dorm threw a weird stare at him in the lobby, because no sane student usually was awake at this hour, but Jaebum didn’t pay much attention, mind occupied with other things.

He spent time till his morning classes just walking around the campus trying to avoid thinking about whether Mark caught up on what was happening, or was he even awake already. Lectures passed in a total blur, because Jaebum kept seeing his phone ringing and couldn’t focus on anything else – at first he just put it on silent in order not to hear the vibration, tempting to pick up, then he just threw his phone in his backpack altogether.

He knows he’s acting like a piece of shit with all this ignoring and not replying to the messages to at least say that everything’s fine so Mark would stop worrying that much, but he just can’t help himself – he’s always been that kind of a person to completely isolate himself when something is bothering him, not explaining anything and causing misunderstandings with that most of the time.

“Have you seen Mark today?” That’s the first question he asks Jackson, when they bump into each other at little earlier that day, when Jaebum’s coursemates, seeing this unexplainable misery, decide to drag him outside for the day, hoping that a few drinks and food will fix the tragic mood. Jaebum hoped the same, maybe that was why he agreed in the first place.

“No, my morning was packed with classes and stuff, man.” Jackson’s response sounded a little incredulous as if he had never thought that there will come a time when Jaebum won’t know where the love of his life is.

Jackson was in a hurry, so Jaebum didn’t want to waste his time, checking his phone again before returning to his friends – Mark stopped calling and texting, what made his insides twist a little. And now, when he’s sitting in a crowded small restaurant with so many people and so little space that he almost spills a spoonful of soup on himself because someone bumps into his elbow, he thinks that he might the biggest idiot in this world.

So what if their relationship developed so fast? So what if Jinyoung pointed it out? If Mark would be uncomfortable about it, he would’ve told it already; despite not being the most talkative person on this earth, Mark has always told the most important things about how he feels and what he likes or dislikes in a relationship, nagging Jaebum to do the same – and now Jaebum feels ashamed for even having the audacity to doubt something.

“Hey, where do you think you’re going?” One of his friends asks, when Jaebum abruptly stands up in the middle of a conversation, hurriedly trying to find a few bills in his wallet to pay for the meal and sprint from there as fast as possible.

“Something urgent came up, sorry!”

The small restaurant isn’t that far from the campus of their university, what Jaebum, running down the street with all his speed and trying not to bump into people while tapping his phone to call Mark, thanks all the gods for. Mark doesn’t pick up so he curses, feeling his side already burning in pain, because he doesn’t remember the last time he exercised properly. Jinyoung isn’t picking up either, so does Jackson, and Jaebum curses yet again, thinking that the best option will be to just head straight to the dorms – if Mark won’t be in his room, at least maybe Bambam will have enough mercy to let him wait there or something.

Luckily, he doesn’t need any of that – to reach the dorms from the place he is right now, students need to pass the cafeteria building, which Jackson, Jinyoung and Mark come out from almost the same second Jaebum shows up there.

Jinyoung looks at him with a raised eyebrow, so Jaebum realizes that they all probably know what kind of dick he’s been the entire day, but he knows that he deserves the title. Mark, on the other hand, is giving him a taste of his own medicine, openly ignoring his presence until Jaebum comes up to him saying, “We need to talk.”

“We sure do.” Mark responds blankly, without any expression on his face.

However, it seems like they’re not the only ones about to have a conversation here, because someone approaches Jinyoung as well, and of course, to add to the mess, it’s none other than professor Yang after his lunch break.

And then Jinyoung realizes that the game is over.

“Jinyoung, did you read my letter about the conference?” The professor asks, lightly smiling at his student, who is standing there surrounded by his friends all flabbergasted, praying that thanks to some miracle nothing else would be told. Jinyoung slowly nods. “I didn’t get any reply from you, so I thought it might’ve gotten lost due to repair works of the mail system. Anyway, did you contact the students who participated in the interview?” That immediately catches Mark and Jaebum’s attention, distracting them from their own conflict, and Jackson curses under his breath. “I really want to talk to them about this whole experiment they participated in, so please send them to my office by the end of this week, okay?”

Jinyoung only nods again, feeling his legs becoming a mush after the professor happily leaves, having no clue what just happened, what kind of disaster he just exposed.

Mark and Jaebum look utterly confused, knowing that they were the topic of the conversation, yet failing to understand what the conversation was about, Jackson keeps looking at the ground, waiting for the events to unfold in at least some kind of way. Jinyoung follows suit as well – maybe, he thinks, if they all keep silent for long enough, everyone will mysteriously forget what just happened. Sadly, it doesn’t happen.

“Why does your professor want to see us?” Jaebum asks, and it’s quite hilarious how prone he is to making wrong conclusions today, just that nobody really wants to laugh at this point. “Is it because he thinks you cheated or something?”

“What experiment was he talking about?” Mark frowns, trying to remember the exact words. “We only did an interview.”

Jinyoung sighs in defeat. That’s it, he thinks, it’s the time to face the aftermath of everything that’s been going for the past five months and hope that it won’t end in the cruelest and the most terrible way ever.

“We need to talk. Like, all of us, now.” Jinyoung finally tells, and neither Mark nor Jaebum feel very good about this, the shadow of their own unresolved mess still lingering around. “There are some important things about that interview that you’re not aware of.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo, we just fully entered the angst zone, like i notice it's my thing - everything's going kinda smoothly and then it just goes down in one chapter without any warnings lmao  
> jaebum's being an insecure asshole, (but maybe he has a reason, there's still something up my sleeve, haha) i have no defense for him, and yay (?) @ jinyoung finally getting caught so i can finally start sorting the mess out.  
> the chapter count might be tentative though, i'm gonna try to fit within 12, but we'll see
> 
> anyway, i hope you all liked this mess and comments are always welcomed


	10. Chapter 10

All four of them wind up in the nearest faculty’s library – it was Jackson’s idea; probably he thought things will be going smoother keeping everyone in a place where no one would be able to make a scene out loud publicly if ( _when_ ) things go terribly wrong.

They occupy one of the tables after getting completely sure there’s no one else in this particular section to interrupt their conversation; the seating arrangement gives away the seriousness of the situation immediately – Mark doesn’t even bat an eyelash at a chair Jaebum leaves empty next to himself, instead he sits next to Jackson, while Jinyoung is trapped by taking a seat in front of Mark and next to Jaebum.

“So, what is this all about?” Mark asks after a bit and Jinyoung licks his lips, not sure where to start explaining this disaster from. To be completely honest, he just wants to tell them the most basic facts and run away to suffer for the rest of the eternity, letting everyone sort stuff out on their own; however, Jinyoung knows he can’t – not only it would be an even bigger dick move, it’d be plainly _unfair_. He’s dragged his friends into enough trouble already.

His inner monologue results only in even more silence, making everyone impatient, and Jackson finally sighs, taking it upon himself to start, trying to save his boyfriend’s ass from yet another fuck up as much as possible in these circumstances. “You both probably remember the interview Jinyoung asked you to do back in December, right?”

It’s kind of a dumb question, considering the fact that if they didn’t remember it, none of them would be here, Jaebum wouldn’t be with Mark; but it’s still some sort of an ice breaker to at least give a hint what is this talk going to be about, and Jinyoung gratefully looks at him.

“I sure do. A certain person during it said it’s hard for him to talk to people about his feelings and he tries to avoid it as much as possible, what, as we all know, is clearly the case here.” Mark says, his words covered in a huge dose of sarcasm, so unfitting for him. The one whom this sentence is directed at, only lowers his head in embarrassment. “But what about it?”

Jinyoung finally, after a whole lot of struggle, finds the courage to speak, taking a deep breath and saying, “It wasn’t a simple interview.”

“Well, it sure was a little strange and unusual.” Mark agrees, this time without any underlying cold meanings, and it seems like he’ll be the one to do all the talking today. Usually, it’s the other way around – Jaebum is always the one to ask tons of questions to get explanations about things, but this time the latter sits completely silent. “The questions were a little… personal as well.”

“The questions you answered…” Jinyoung sighs, a bit glad that Mark hits the bullseye so quick, but still trying to beat around the bush for as long as possible to postpone the big news that are definitely going to break a few hearts. “They’re the problem here.”

Jaebum raises his head for the first time during the last five minutes, mumbling something while looking as if he isn’t even listening properly, head occupied with other, seemingly more important thoughts that need quick solutions. “Problem? What problem?”

Another short pause follows after these words, with Jackson looking right Jinyoung in the eyes and pressing him to stop this circus, get straight to the point and finally own up to his doings. “There’s some backstory to these. I myself knew none of it until Jackson pointed it out, but even then I didn’t give it much thought. Jackson has nothing to do with anything though, he just showed me where I majestically fucked up.” Jinyoung quickly adds, when both Mark and Jaebum’s stares shift to the guy.

Both of the guys look like they’re getting gradually more and more confused about what is going here, and where all of this is leading; they definitely don’t have time for Jinyoung’s stories, waiting for him to be done with this soon, so they could know the _big thing_ their friend is hiding and go do something else – solve their own problems they have plenty of now, for example.

“If you, like, copied those questions and sent them as your own and got caught, or something, I don’t see why we should be here and how can we help you with that.” Mark says, coming off a little rude, but maybe it’s okay for the time being, considering his mood and what thoughts are racing in his mind.

However, Jinyoung only shakes his head and lets out a smile. “I wish it was that simple. Plagiarism at least would mess only with _my_ life.” There’s something in his voice, a certain undertone, which makes Jaebum alert, finally focusing instead of dozing off coddled in thoughts about his breaking heart. “These questions… Apparently, they’re a part of an old study on human interactions.”

“We know that much, you said it yourself, that your assignment was to observe interactions.” Mark reminds, not really understanding why the conversation continues to flow in this weird manner – all these dramatic pauses when their voices are merely whispers anyway, since, well, they’re still in the library.

Jinyoung tiredly rubs his eyes and sighs yet again. “These questions are not meant for two people simply get to know each other and a bunch of psychologists to observe them. There… There was a saying in 1997 that if you answer all those together with someone and maintain an eye contact for about four minutes, it might lead… It might lead to love.”

Mark and Jaebum are clearly still confused, not able to catch up with the waterfall of words, which is spilling out of Jinyoung’s mouth faster and faster, as if he’s attempting to get rid of it as fast as possible now that he finally got them out of himself. They’re staring at their friend just as blankly, with no clue about what’s happening; Jackson is looking away, squinting his eyes a little, like he would be expecting an explosion to happen – but it doesn’t. Not yet.

“And?” Mark tells, impatiently tapping a surface of the table they’re sitting at, his mind not making any links at all, other than that Im Jaebum is the biggest douchebag in this world, fleeing away and returning after half a day with a half-assed ‘ _we need to talk_ ’. “What does it have to do with us?”

“I remembered that assignment literally the same morning I texted you both.” Jinyoung continues, giving them all the details and patiently dragging the clouds of an upcoming storm onto himself. “I grabbed the first sheet of questions I saw on google and gave them to you, leaving to write some other paper. While you were going through them, Jackson came up to me and those questions looked familiar to him, he even said that there’s a music video about it, and that after the initial study, a couple got married eventually. At first, I called bullshit on it, but then… yeah. You started to see each other more and more, to my own horror, and eventually became a couple.”

Jaebum gets so, so stiff upon these words, it feels like he froze in his seat; Jinyoung can physically feel the tension radiating from him and it seems like he’s starting to realize things, opening his mouth to say something, but Mark beats him to it, mumbling, “So… You mean, that me and Jaebum—“

“Yes. I had no idea that something like that is possible and I’m not proud of it, but… yeah.”

For a while no one says a word, waiting for each other’s reactions, and a deadly silence lingers around them, as if making fun of this whole mess; Jinyoung looks somewhere at Jackson’s shoulder since he can’t face the two guys, Jackson is trying to drill a hole in the floor with his stare. Mark doesn’t look anywhere, closing his eyes and rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration, Jaebum is staring somewhere at his knees.

And then Mark starts chuckling, what makes the rest of them shift their stares at him to check if he’s still in his right mind.

“Okay, that’s a good one, I have to give you that.” Mark says, swallowing down his laughing fit, so inappropriate in the library, completely oblivious to the fact that no one is laughing together with him. “It definitely was very convincing and believable, but now cut the bullshit, why exactly are we here?”

“He’s absolutely serious.” Jackson tells, even though it’s not really possible for Mark to take him more seriously than he took Jinyoung; the prankster label has its own disadvantages. “It’s not a joke, it’s all real. At this point, it can’t get any more serious.”

For a while Mark sits there with a dumb smile on his face, but they all can notice that something is running through his mind, it’s obvious; and then Mark’s smile starts to fade – slowly and carefully, the realization dawns on him at last, as he’s putting facts together in his mind, all the little happenings and events that led to the situation they’re stuck at now… And it all fits, it explains him _fucking everything_ – the weird questions, the even weirder feelings and the suddenness. The feeling of something being off.

And it breaks his heart at the same time.

“You’re saying…” He starts again, but his voice cracks a little. “That Jaebum and I are really just a result of a damn paper of yours? Are you sure about that?” His voice gets louder and louder, and higher in pitch as he’s desperate for someone to deny it, to tell that it’s a joke after all. But no one does that, just confirms it even more. And the one confirming it this time is… Jaebum.

“That makes the most sense then.” The latter says, timidly lifting his head and opening his mouth for the first time in a while, feeling how three pairs of eyes dart at him with questioning looks, wanting to know what the thing that makes so much sense to him is. “I kind of… knew.”

“What?!” Three voices say in a perfect unison, earning a death glare from an old library worker, who’s passingly by their section sorting out books.

Jaebum doesn’t respond for a while, thinking how should he put that into words; but in the end, everything is crashing and burning anyway, his story probably will have so little influence to this, so he decides to proceed anyway, talking more to Mark than everyone else.

“I didn’t really think about it until Jackson told me that Jinyoung’s professor asked him to elaborate on the paper. I thought it’s kind of weird, because what more can you make out of a simple interview, but I brushed it off as something irrelevant – even though the questions surely didn’t look like something Jinyoung would write, I didn’t take it seriously.” He sighs, knowing that he made the same mistake, not taking _anything_ seriously. “Only yesterday, when Jinyoung noted our relationship is going seemingly too fast, I remembered those questions again, so when you fell asleep I took my phone and started reading articles about it. This study was the only thing that explained everything, and that scared the living shit out of me. Now knowing that Jinyoung’s professor wants to see us at his office for some conference, I think the experiment was indeed a success.”

Jinyoung stares at him with his mouth wide open, because he never expected someone asides Jackson to find out the truth, he thought he’s been secretive enough. But turns out, he forgot one very important thing – neither Jaebum nor Mark are dumb, so something like that was bound to happen.

“I get it.” Mark says with a calm expression on his face, the one that is actually the scariest in this setting, because you can hear how hurt he is from his voice alone; his words are shaky, as if he’s trying to contain himself from yelling, or worse, crying. “Everyone else except me knew it, how typical. No one bothered to tell me that it’s a fucking experiment. Let’s look at a dumbass Mark falling in love, just for a show to fucking peek into his brain, wow, so entertaining.”

“It wasn’t like that—“ Jinyoung wants to say, but is mercilessly cut off.

Mark scoffs at his words, face now turning full of rage. “It wasn’t like that? Then what the fuck _is_ that, Jinyoung? What kind of god are you playing here?”

Surprisingly, Jaebum, even though boiling in anger himself and only a step away from punching someone, most likely Jinyoung, comes into defense, saying, “He said he didn’t know what he was doing. None of us knew the exact same moment it happened.”

“Oh shut up, you’re no better.” Mark gladly grabs the opportunity to direct all the anger at Jaebum, giving his extra dose of sarcasm. “Probably it was very funny to play me like that for you too. _Oh, I don’t have a homework partner, oh a cat is stuck in a tree; oops, it’s too late to go home, let’s sleep in one bed and develop fucking feelings, but oh wait – we forgot to tell you it’s just a fucked up experiment, let me simple ditch you one night when you’re sleeping_. Is that what it was to you, Im Jaebum?” Mark feels out of breath when he finally stops his ramble. And now it’s Jaebum’s turn to feel offended.

“Don’t make it seem like I knew it all along, when it’s not even twenty-four hours after I started realizing, for fuck’s sake!” By now, they’re openly fighting with shamelessly raised voices, attracting more and more attention from librarians and students, all annoyed that they studying sessions are interrupted by a bunch of dramatic guys. “And for your information, I never did any of this for the sake of a stupid experiment even when I knew, thanks for the trust and a very good opinion on me, by the way, was it always like that?”

Jinyoung watches this entire exchange of curses and accusations with a very heavy heart and a loss of words, with Jackson’s stare yelling at him “ _congrats on fucking up a relationship_ ”, as if he wouldn’t be aware of this himself.

“What else am I supposed to think then? Since apparently all of this was just a game for some of you, a fucking joke of a relationship, which happened only because someone needed to write a paper and save his ass.”

Jaebum’s face hardens at the remark, hearing only a few words from this entire litany. “Our relationship wasn’t a joke.” He spits out, feeling hurt about Mark even having the audacity to say that, no matter the fact that it’s probably out of anger and shock; sure, it’s a whole mess that originated from terribly unfortunate circumstances, but these words still hurt, because despite the weird feeling that accompanied them all this time, Jaebum now knows that his feelings were and _still are_ completely genuine.

“Sure it wasn’t. That’s exactly why you ran away last night, right?”

It seems like Jaebum’s patience also has some certain limits as he clenches his jaw and purses his lips before replying. “Welcome to the world where not only you have feelings and can get hurt, newsflash – I also can be fucking insecure about something. Imagine not knowing whether what you feel is real or just an echo of someone playing with your mind for god’s sake – people get out of their minds because of stuff like that. Imagine fucking looking at someone and wondering if this all is a sweet hallucination we’re living in for a while, imagine thinking that they wouldn’t even be with you if not for a stupid experiment, because you know that no one could bear with your personality under normal circumstances. _But no,_ let’s just turn a blind eye at everyone else’s feelings right now and let’s pity our own stupid asses.”

“So now you’re calling me stupid and selfish. Great.” Tears of anger are finally pricking at the back of Mark’s eyes, and he doesn’t even know what exactly he feels right now – he has no idea whether he’s truly angry, or maybe he’s sad, disappointed, heartbroken, hurt; the line between all these emotions blurs, but one thing is for sure – he’s done with every single thing and person here.

“I didn’t say anything like that—“ Jaebum argues, but Mark is having none of it anymore, getting his backpack and standing up to leave. “You know what, okay, be like that, see if I give a fuck about this.” The truth is, he does give a fuck, a lot of them, but his hurt pride is so much stronger than the urge of think rationally.

Mark leaves quickly after, storming out with a backpack that’s not even zipped up properly, scattering and leaving tons of notes and papers behind, but he doesn’t give a damn about them – his only wish is to get out of this building before he starts crying, this time not from anger.

“That… wasn’t necessary.” Jinyoung silently notes, wondering why he’s still alive to witness how everything is breaking apart because of his mistakes.

“You know what wasn’t necessary here?” Jaebum fires back, standing up to leave as well. “Your experiments, that’s what. But sure, I, like always, am the bad one here, of course. Let’s dump shit on Jaebum, shall we, he doesn’t feel anything anyway. I’m sick of this.”

Soon, the doors of the library close for the second time; if Mark closed them silently, Jaebum slams them with such force, Jinyoung can swear he feels a wind gust from it finding its way to the table. Jackson wants to say something, but Jinyoung gestures him to keep it, he’s fully aware that he just broke hearts of two people _and_ lost two friends all at once.

As if to reflect their moods, it starts raining outside; a warm spring rain drenching the two guys who keep walking without searching any shelter from the upcoming storm – one to his dorm to hide from everyone for a few days, another one to a subway station, kicking every rock or a piece of trash on his way there to release his anger somehow.

Maybe they hope that the rain will wash away their emotions, maybe they hope that nobody will see their tears, deceivingly rolling down their cheeks – even they themselves don’t know it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> uhm. yeah. angsty mess and miscommunication, the waters i feel the most comfortable swimming in + 2 more weeks to sort this out.  
> anyway, hopefully, this angst will go away soon and you liked the chapter; as always, comments are very welcomed!
> 
> also, why tf i always forget to add a jinson tag here, by now they're more stable here than the actual main pair lmao


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sliiiiiiightly later than usual lmao, but university's been killing me. 
> 
> the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW5ql1FrqjM) that will be mentioned later in the chapter is what i was looping while writing the chapter lmao so give it a try, it's really good!

When Jaebum’s phone vibrates somewhere under his pillow, he groans and decides to ignore it for a while, having no wish to engage in any kind of human interactions for the time being. The buzzing sound becomes an object of interest for one of his cats though, the pet hitting Jaebum’s pillow a few times with its paw to “catch” the sound, and Jaebum sits up in his bed to shoo the cat away, but stops midway – it’s Moon, one of the many things that immediately reminds him of Mark, looking at him with curious green eyes.

It’s been whole two weeks of hell since their last meeting, and if Jaebum childishly hoped that a few days will be enough to numb this weird emptiness and ease the anger that were constantly reminding about themselves at the most random times – in a lecture hall, while taking a subway home, late in the night – he was clearly wrong. However, he thinks he’s been dealing with it exceptionally well; he even managed to lie to his mom about the reason why Mark isn’t coming over anymore. Mark is busy, he says, summer break is slowly approaching and he’s getting ready to go back to the States to meet his family.

Sure.

Actually, Jaebum’s already lost the count of how many hours he has spent lying down and rewinding every single memory he has of Mark Tuan; wondering whether what he felt and maybe still feels is real or only an outcome of Jinyoung’s assignments, wondering if Mark ever felt the same about him. Honestly speaking, Jaebum thinks he can understand what Mark felt that day when everything was finally revealed, but it doesn’t make things easier, knowing that the guy is convinced that it all was just a game for them all, Jaebum included.

And the latter really wants to hate Jinyoung for this – it _was_ his fault, his fuck up; if not for him being messy with his homework and deadlines, if he noticed earlier what kind of interview was that, maybe the outcome would’ve been different. Maybe Jaebum and Mark would’ve fallen in love in some other way, accepting that they’re meant to be slowly, without rush and doubts; maybe they would’ve finished the interview and parted ways forever – no relationship, nothing at all. And Jaebum doesn’t know if Jinyoung’s worth hating for that after all, since he doesn’t know which option is more frightening – having nothing to remember at all, or having an ending like this.

His phone buzzes again, either in a reminder of a missed notification or a new one, and Jaebum snaps back to the reality where he’s still half sitting in his bed looking at Moon, who is now curling up in his lap, trying to snuggle as close to his owner as possible, and a thought crosses his mind again – Mark used to be just as soft and in need of proximity when the would lie down together. Jaebum sighs and shakes his head, one earphone falling out of his ear as he’s still listening to music, the lyrics of the song he’s been listening to on repeat softly filling the room due to the loud sound settings, as if Jaebum tried to drown his thoughts with it.

_It sinks into your head, hell it hurts; but it’s not love_

He thinks the lyrics are pretty fitting, some sort of a comfort song to convince himself that Mark was right, it never meant anything, so they all should just move on, but soon he has to pause it after finally taking the phone into his hand and feeling his blood freezing a little. It’s telling him that he and Mark ended in the same Kakao chatroom for some reason, Jinyoung is also there, but what’s most surprising, is that Mark seems to be the one behind creating the chatroom.

At first, Jaebum doesn’t even want to look at those few messages, neither knowing what to expect, nor _wanting_ to expect anything. If Mark wanted to talk things out or something, he would’ve called or at least messaged him privately, so Jaebum doubts that the chatroom has anything to do with making amends. And when he finally takes a deep breath and gathers courage to finally open the notifications, Jaebum thinks he’s dreaming a nightmare.

 **[4:26 PM] Mark:** so what about that conference or whatever

 **[4:27 PM] Mark:** are we still doing it?

 **[4:36 PM] Mark:** ?

Jaebum feels like he doesn’t understand _anything_ anymore, there’s no legit reason for Mark to care about that conference, not under circumstances like these; and it seems like even Jinyoung shares the same mindset, because after leaving the messages seen for a while, he replies with a short, “ _What?_ ”

 **[4:47 PM] Mark:** the conference. which all the big fuss was about apparently.

 **[4:48 PM] Jinyoung:** I’m trying to figure it out with my professor about me not participating

 **[4:48 PM] Jinyoung:** don’t worry about it

 **[4:49 PM] Jinyoung:** I’m sorry.

For a while there’s no response from anyone, and Jaebum has no clue whether he _should_ reply, thinking that it might be a better idea to stay quiet this time around. But Mark’s sudden interest is weird, and Jaebum is almost sure that something is lying underneath, some sort of a hidden intent, _something_ – Mark never was the type to dive into something that hurt him once. And he’s not wrong – the reason isn’t even hidden.

 **[4:51 PM] Mark:** I don’t think you should cancel your participation though

 **[4:52 PM] Mark:** I mean, you did work on your assignment very diligently

 **[4:53 PM] Mark:** It would be a pity to waste your efforts like that, wouldn’t it?

Jaebum, on any other occasion, probably would’ve been shocked at how bitter and sarcastic Mark is, because the latter never talked like that with anyone, ever; he thinks he finally realizes the reason behind this whole conversation, and he can’t even say he’s mad about it. Jinyoung seems unsuspecting though, busy apologizing for the hundredth time since he has the opportunity, until Mark says it straightforwardly.

_If this entire relationship was just a game, it won’t hurt to play it one more time, will it? For the sake of science._

After that it’s clear for everyone – Mark doesn’t give a shit about conferences or psychology, he just wants to make them all uncomfortable, a revenge of some sorts; a payback for whatever he felt after finding out the truth and that most of the people involved got to know everything before he did.

And maybe Jaebum isn’t the smartest person ever either, letting the anger about this finally get the better of him, the only message he ever writes in this group chat being, “ _Fine, then. Let’s do this._ ”

Even if there is a way back, maybe even countless of them, none of them use it.

 

Mark feels sick seeing so many people in the lecture hall which the presentations are supposed to be held in. He didn’t think it’s going to be such a huge event – he thought that maybe there will be students from other cities and that’s it, because how far student conferences can go; but now he sees a bunch of Japanese and Chinese students with their interpreters, and quickly skimming through the event schedule, written in some booklet, Mark, to his own horror, realizes that research presentations are only a tiny part of a huge, huge event for psychology students all over East Asia.

Now, when there’s only one presentation left before Jinyoung’s, Mark thinks he, while being driven by anger and bitterness, made a stupid mistake. He doesn’t know why he decided to push through the conference, or why he even suggested it in the first place – it’s not that he really cared about how Jinyoung’s term paper will end up being graded, or the fact that there would’ve been a whole lot of questions as to why one presentation of the hosting university was cancelled so suddenly.

Somewhere deep in his heart though, Mark thinks he knows the reason, just doesn’t want to admit it. Sure – there were tons of other ways to see Jaebum without dragging him through an event only to be put under a radar of hundreds of psychologists, including probably the most logical and adult-like one of just asking to meet up and sort things out, but Mark’s pride is a thing that’s not silenced so easily; so one day, after hours of sighing and aimless wallowing in misery, he decided that it _is_ the best way not to show that he cares, when he damn does.

He was curious how Jaebum has been doing ever since their implied breakup, and the sight of it is sad, but not surprising by any means, even though Mark did try to convince himself that his now ex-boyfriend is living happily ever after – Jaebum, leaning against a wall, looks incredibly tired, sad and anxious; for a split second Mark wants to come close, maybe hug him and tell that everything’s going to be fine, but he can’t.

Jinyoung tells, in a voice perfectly reflecting their tragic moods, that their turn is in approximately three minutes, and that they should be getting ready. What he doesn’t specify, but still lets linger in the air, is that they should be getting ready to go and _act_ , their smiles reflecting Jinyoung’s term paper conclusion about a lucky couple living happily ever after. Mark only blankly nods at it, as they didn’t talk much all day anyway, and just before going up the stage takes Jaebum’s hand into his; it’s only a reflex, some convincing act, but Jaebum flinches as if Mark’s fingers would be burning his hand, and shoots him a questioning glare, when the older guy puts the bundle of their entwined fingers into the pocket of his hoodie that he’s wearing since Jinyoung told them not to worry about any dress codes.

“What’s that for?” Jaebum’s voice shakes a little, as addressing Mark directly seems so foreign now after a few long weeks, but the latter doesn’t even spare a glance at him.

“Your hands are cold. I hate cold hands.” Mark’s voice in unintentionally strict and Jaebum’s heart sinks. He’s never heard Mark talking to him like this, and it hurts, it hurts so much; but there’s no time to pity himself, because it’s finally Jinyoung’s turn to present the research, with both of the research subjects sitting right next to him, to answer any possible questions. Jinyoung, knowing that there’s going to be a lot of them, promised to try prevent them having to speak as much as possible, but that doesn’t really help.

The entire time, those good fifteen minutes that Jinyoung takes to thoroughly introduce his findings, Mark and Jaebum barely look at each other. Jaebum’s hands are now all back to himself, and he’s awkwardly tapping his knee with his fingers, looking somewhere at the floor. Mark isn’t focusing on anything else asides his shoes, looking like he’d gladly stand up and run for his life, regretting all of his decisions, because it hurts just a tad bit too much for him to handle.

Jinyoung finally finishes his speech another ten minutes later and a whole bunch of questions are thrown at them like an avalanche threatening to drown them. Jinyoung takes the bullet for most of it, even though for those who have at least a tiny bit more knowledge on the actual situation it would be perfectly clear that he’s just bullshitting answers on the spot.

“Did the participants know what kind of experiment they were participating in?” One girl asks, and Jaebum wants to cringe, because she unknowingly hits the bullseye.

Jinyoung answers, “Not entirely. They knew about an experiment of some sorts, but I decided not to disclose the actual topic to them, thinking that the results might be more reliable if they don’t know all the possible implications.” It’s only half of the truth, but the audience seems to buy it, while Mark sarcastically scoffs, not even bothering to hide it anymore.

And then another question comes, one that Jinyoung is unable to help them with. One student from Japan asks, “But how is your relationship now? It’s been quite a while since the experiment ended, is there any tension after knowing what brought you together?”

Mark is given the microphone first, looking Jaebum directly into the eyes, but not really seeing him, face blank and voice emotionless. “Everything’s great. Sure, things were a little weird a first, but we managed to get out of it.” It’s another shameless lie among all the others they’ve told today; Jaebum doesn’t even fake a smile at it, but it’s not like someone will think it’s something more than a sudden stage fright or whatever. He simply says he agrees with everything Mark told just now.

Jinyoung’s presentation is the last one for today, so there’s no rush, but slowly the question time comes to an end, and it’s finally time to go; however, Jinyoung unexpectedly takes the microphone again. “This isn’t something that was included in my paper, but… I think it should be said anyway, as it’s my honest opinion about all this. Even after doing an experiment like this, actually, I don’t believe it myself.”

Mark frowns hearing that, so does Jaebum, so does a whole lot of other people after hearing this sudden turn.

“It’s just too easy, don’t you think?” Jinyoung continues, and he sounds somehow casual, as if talking with his old friends. Or maybe he indeed is addressing them. “You do an interview and boom, you’re in love? I really don’t think so. Relationships are like works of art combined with a little bit of math – you draw lines when meeting people, or not meeting them. Sometimes those lines are parallels, they never meet. Sometimes those lines do meet at a certain point of life, but they grow apart and go their own ways, they’re never meant to stay together. Some of those lines, though, they cross, they get tangled together, drawing the weirdest figures according to even weirder laws we can’t control – and that’s where the beauty of a relationship is.”

Jinyoung makes a pause, taking a sip of water from a water bottle, and soon continues. “My point is, no one can force you into a relationship – interview questions, eye contact… if you’re just not meant to be you’ll experience a fall out anyway. Maybe not immediately, maybe not even after a year or two, but you will. And if you are meant to be, it will also happen anyway. Maybe it will be two people always accidentally bumping into each other after a friend asks them to help him with a homework assignment, maybe it will be two people who meet in a lecture and decide to sit together to kill the time. This doesn’t depend on some questions, there’s no trick there – you simply hear a person out during the interview, and sometimes, you get attracted because you get to know them. Or you just don’t get attracted. The only magic that happens during experiments like this, is here.” Jinyoung points at his heart. “Heart makes a decision, not science or anything else.”

The ending of his speech receives a deadly silence, because he just denied everything he’s been talking about for the last thirty minutes, but Jinyoung doesn’t care about that, he just wants to do the right thing.

Then slowly, applause starts, with only a few people clapping at first, then more and more of them joining. Mark claps a few times, only out of politeness because he’s still struck by these words; Jaebum, however, doesn’t seem like he even heard it, as he’s standing up and disappearing as quickly as possible, thinking that his job here is done – he showed up, Jinyoung made his presentation, the end.

Mark follows his back with this eyes, thinking about something and then Jinyoung’s words slap him with a full force, making him finally understand things he was too stubborn to realize before.

All those things - interviews, questions, experiments – they truly don’t matter. Those questions didn’t make Mark become Jaebum’s astronomy homework partner – both of the guys just held onto each other because they have worked together before and Mark just really, genuinely wanted to help. The stuck kitten rescuing was just because they were friends, and it’s friends who help each other with all kinds of things, not some stupid sheet of paper full of weird questions. Mark and Jaebum spending more and more time together wasn’t a result of an experiment, it was a result of them feeling comfortable with each other. Them becoming a couple was because they were attracted to each other for who they are, not because they were forced by some weird superpower.

_Mark thinks he’ll never be able to forget how happy Jaebum looked that night when they got back to the dorm after that infamous party, which ended in a kiss. Usually, Jaebum was extra talkative whenever he was around Mark, but that night it felt Jackson’s spirit suddenly decided to switch bodies and ended up in Jaebum, the guy almost literally beaming in happiness and excitement._

_“Well someone truly does look happy tonight.” Mark noted, feeling how tight Jaebum’s grasp on his fingers were, as he was searching for the keys of his dorm room._

_Jaebum let his hand go only for a short moment, only for Mark to figure out where the light switch was in complete darkness, and as they stumbled into the room, he answered only, “I_ am _happy.”_

_“What for?” Mark’s words were slightly daring, a little mischievous for their almost 7 AM tipsiness, but Jaebum’s smile, the one which looks like it’s so wide, it will tear his cheeks apart, made him smile as well, it was that contagious._

_“Guess.”_

_Mark only shrugged, teasing the guy and telling him to help search for an extra pillow in the room, because Bambam’s was buried somewhere under the mess in his bed, and soon Mark gave up, thinking that there was nothing unusual about sharing anyway._

_“Are we seriously going to share a pillow and a blanket?” For some reason, Jaebum suddenly seemed shy and a little embarrassed, but it was nothing but adorable._

_“Isn’t that what couples usually do?” Mark laughed looking at him and suggestively wiggling his eyebrows as a joke, and Jaebum started blushing, his pink cheeks clearly visible even in the dim sunlight that was already slowly making its way into the room._

_Jaebum told himself to get his shit together in hopes that his heart will stop fluttering like an idiot, and leaned against a wall, following Mark’s teasing. “I don’t know, are we even one to begin with?”_

_“Well, you kissed me.” Mark said, curious to see where all of this will lead them._

_“You did that first.”_

_“Mine was a penalty, yours was a choice.” Mark retorted with a wide smile, his lips corners still feeling weird tickles whenever he remembered the way Jaebum kissed him – softly and shyly, making Mark’s knees weak and heart beating like crazy._

_“How was mine a choice, what choice does one have when a drop dead gorgeous dude kisses him out of the blue?” Jaebum laughed in response, trying to be smooth with his compliment._

_Mark seemed to be happy with it, trying to hide how much he liked these words. “Oh wow, if it was someone else just as hot, you would’ve kissed them back as well?”_

_“Maybe.” Jaebum didn’t mean it and it was terribly obvious, but Mark still pretended to be offended._

_“Get out, then.”_

_Jaebum felt sleepy, too sleepy and tipsy to keep up with all the teasing and not even wanting to deny it anymore, so a few seconds later Mark let out a surprised gasp, when Jaebum wrapped his arms around his waist dragging him closer and telling, “I wouldn’t have kissed anyone else back, even if there was a top model standing in front of me. From now on, I’m going to kiss only you and no one else.”_

_“Cheesy.” Mark chuckled, but his heart felt so, so light hearing this. “It will do for now though, but I’m watching you. And let’s to go sleep before we fall asleep right here; also for your information, yes, we are sharing a pillow and a blanket, just like couples do.”_

_“So we’re a couple?”_

_Mark laughed once again, and Jaebum thought that he hadn’t heard anything more beautiful in his entire life. “Oh Im Jaebum, so in need for a direct confirmation and refusing to read between the lines. Yes, we’re a couple now, till death do us part, because you’re not getting rid of me in any other ways. Is that enough for you?”_

_It was enough; actually, it was much more than Jaebum ever hoped for._

Mark, remembering all this, still sitting in his place despite the fact that the lecture hall is almost empty, now knows that Jinyoung was right after all. A bunch of questions don’t make you suddenly fall in love with a stranger – maybe it is a good opportunity for people to meet each other, to get to know each other, but in the end the decision is yours.

And Mark has made his, trying to get out of the building as fast as possible, heading to catch a bus that’s going straight to Jaebum’s home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> are we finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel lmao one more chapter left, one more week and it's gonna be over and tbh, i already feel weird about it, i just dont know if it's a good or bad feeling lmao
> 
> okay anyway, less talks, hope you liked it, and comments are always welcomed!


	12. Chapter 12

Usually, a subway trip to Goyang is never short – if you’re lucky, it’s one and a half hour, excluding the time spent waiting for transfers; if Mark’s lucky, he’s with Jaebum to goof around to pass the time, the younger telling random dad jokes only to make his boyfriend smile, or both of them just being plainly gross with each other, making older people gasp in disagreement, and their peers shake their heads in a non-verbal “get a room, jeez”.

This time, though, the ride seems like it will never end and that transfer trains will never come, the clocks in a waiting area ticking so, so slow for Mark. The latter feels anxious about that, nervously tapping his foot and walking back and forth, but he decides it might be better that way – while he _needs_ to see Jaebum, at the same time he’s not sure if it’s that great of an idea, to barge into the guy’s place like that, when his behavior these past weeks wasn’t the nicest. Softly speaking.

Mark is fully aware of the fact that he’s been acting like an asshole, especially with the whole “let’s continue with the conference” thing, when it was obvious that no one really wanted to do it. Maybe there wasn’t that much to blame him for – in the end, it did feel like Mark’s entire world was flipped upside down. Doubts filled his heart immediately after Jinyoung’s words and especially after Jaebum’s, when the latter told that he knew it. And only now Mark realizes how stupid and hot blooded he was back then – Jaebum definitely isn’t the type to be very open about his feelings, but he sure never lies about them.

The thing Mark’s afraid of the most when he finally sets his foot into Jaebum’s neighborhood, walking confidently, because the way is too familiar already, is what will happen if Jaebum won’t accept the apology.

“What are you doing here, dear?” Mark doesn’t fail to notice surprise in Jaebum’s mom’s face when she opens the door after series of his obnoxious bell ringing and knocking – actually, he’s surprised how none of the neighbors gathered to look what on earth is going on. She lets him in, as friendly as ever, and while Mark is biting his lips, nervous and unsure if he should tell her what he’s really here for, she speaks up first. “Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready to go back home for the summer? Jaebum said you’re so busy, you barely meet anymore.”

“I have some free time today, so…” The lie gets stuck in Mark’s throat, because he knows how much Jaebum hates lying to his parents, so probably there was a good reason to do so; a relationship going sideways with a prospect of not having a happy ending, since things are fucked up like that, being a _very_ good reason. “So I thought I’d visit him, we haven’t seen each other for ages. Is he home, though?”

“He’s in his room, probably sleeping. Said he was really tired after some meeting he had in the morning.” Jaebum’s mother sighs, concerned, but it’s obvious she has no clue what’s really happening. “I always tell him to keep it slow, but probably that’s what the senior year in university looks like these days. Wait a little, Mark, I’ll go see if he’s still sleeping.”

Mark only wordlessly nods, feeling his heart sinking, because he might know the reason of why Jaebum is feeling so “tired” and trying to hide from everyone; however, he doesn’t think about that for long, and the guy’s mom doesn’t reach his room, as Jaebum, probably curious about the voices in the living room, walks in himself.

The sight is heartbreaking and saddening – Jaebum truly looks like he has just woken up, but Mark has seen him napping a whole bunch of times too many not to know that his eyes usually don’t swell like that, so he was probably tearing up. “What are you doing here?” Jaebum’s voice is a little careful, but he doesn’t show much surprise; at this point he looks simply done with everything.

“Mark finally found some time to visit you, isn’t this great?” His mom beams, completely oblivious to the not so subtle tension the room is filled with. “I’m going to make you something to eat while you hang out, okay?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, leaving to the kitchen and rambling how terribly thin both of them are.

Jaebum doesn’t say anything at first, just keeps looking at the floor, but then soon he makes a slight gesture with his head and Mark takes the cue to follow the younger to his room with an awkward silence surrounding both of them.

The room is not that different from what Mark remembers seeing a few weeks ago – the same cozy mess, two of Jaebum’s cats in the room, one on a windowsill, looking outside, and another one sleeping curled up on the owner’s backpack; Mark’s sure that others are probably hiding somewhere, too, but he doesn’t call them to play like usually. The only thing that’s different – there’s no fish tank on the bookshelf, and Mark uses it as a sort of an ice breaker. Which eventually backfires.

“Nora pushed it onto the floor last week.” Jaebum answers his question, the response dry and obviously as short as possible.

“What happened to the goldfish?”

“Died.”

Mark mumbles an apology, mentally cursing himself, because talking about a dead pet isn’t the best topic ever, even if he didn’t know.

“It’s okay.” Jaebum’s voice doesn’t change, remaining emotionless as if he would be wrapped into some kind of a translucent bubble where nothing comes out to the outer world, feelings included.

After that, they sit in silence for a while, listening to sounds of a busy city that are seeping inside through an open window. The silence is unpleasant and borderline painful, you could definitely hear a fly if there was one in the room, however, neither of them bother to break it – Mark, mostly because his initial courage is slowly leaving him and deep, emotional conversations were never his forte anyway; Jaebum, mostly because he’s trying to look indifferent and as if he didn’t spend most of the afternoon occasionally tearing up.

His mom soon interrupts the silence, bringing them two cups of tea and a whole bunch of cookies, telling that she’s about to make lunch anyway so they shouldn’t stuff their stomachs much; they thank her and soon they’re left in silence again. At first, Mark doesn’t touch his snacks at all, but Jaebum, looking somewhere at his shoulder instead of eyes, tells, “Eat.”

Mark obediently follows like he’s hypnotized, not really feeling the taste of the cookies and how scalding hot the drink is, burning his lips, and it’s Jaebum again, not touching his food at all, who speaks up. “What are you doing here?”

“Came for a visit, your mom told you already.” Mark answers, trying to be a little humorous, but apparently it doesn’t work out at all in this situation, as the younger’s eyes remain untouched by any kind of smile, not even a sarcastic one.

“Cut the bullshit.”

Mark slightly flinches at the words, because Jaebum never talked to him like this, but in the end, he thinks he deserves it – he was no better a few weeks ago, either. “We need to talk.”

At first, judging from Jaebum’s stare, Mark expects to hear “we don’t have anything to talk about” or something along those lines, but surprisingly, Jaebum only tilts his head a little, finally taking his cup of tea and asking, “About what?”

“About us, I believe.” It sounds so dramatic and weird, the soap opera-like undertone making Mark uneasy, but their entire relationship reminded of one anyway, so probably it’s not that terrible. A soap opera with quite a big budget, he’d say, considering science things were involved, but that’s totally not the point right now.

“If Jinyoung needs more people for his experiments, I’m going to pass on it this time, thanks.” The worst thing about Jaebum being truly mad and disappointed, in Mark’s opinion, is that he never raises his voice; he keeps talking in the same flat tone as if he’s not even there and all of it is just an echo.

However, Mark is just as enthusiastic about talking things out as Jaebum is about avoiding it, so he continues. “Jinyoung has nothing to do with this. I just came to say that… I’m sorry.”

Jaebum for a while only stares at him, this time directly in the eyes at least, what for some reason feels uncomfortable, as if the younger would be drilling a hole in his head. Then Jaebum puts his cup down looking uninterested, even though inside he’s trying really hard not to fuck his guard up.

“For what?”

“For losing my shit in the heat of the moment. I shouldn’t have jumped into conclusions about your feelings.” If the situation wasn’t so tragic, Mark would be even proud of himself, because look, he’s finally able to talk about this mess like a mature human being, without blaming everyone around him, however, Jaebum still looks unimpressed.

“It’s alright, I guess I can understand where you were coming from that day.” It seems like Jaebum is determined not to say more than one sentence at a time, and Mark thinks he is going to go insane.

“I’m—“

Jaebum doesn’t wait for Mark to elaborate, cutting him off in a blink of an eye. “Let’s not do it, okay? I know how it’s going to be – you’ll apologize, say you didn’t mean any of it, and maybe you really didn’t, who knows. Then you’ll say you want us back together, but in the end you’re only going to doubt everything even further once a situation arises and we’re going to break up, like, two months into it. Let’s just not do it, Mark, I don’t want to go through this again.”

Jaebum sometimes still surprised Mark with the way he seemed to see right through things – he indeed was going to say that, however, he definitely doesn’t agree with the last part; he has absolutely no doubts anymore, and besides, despite all those cold words, Jaebum started to slowly talk about how he feels, so that’s a promising sign. So Mark stubbornly continues to try breaking through the invisible wall between them.

“I truly do want us to get back together.” He says and Jaebum sighs, shaking his head. “Some things Jinyoung said today made me think a lot.”

Jaebum scoffs, finally losing it. “Some things Jinyoung said. Not some things I said, but Jinyoung. Okay.”

“It’s not what I meant.” Mark impatiently says, trying not to say anything that could be interpreted the wrong way, because one word off and it’s going to turn into even more mess than it is now. Delicate baby steps – that’s the best way here, it seems. “But his words about having a choice… I didn’t realize it before. When everything was thrown at me like that, that we were “supposed” to fall in love, that you ended up realizing that earlier than I did, yes, I was angry. And you were right too – I couldn’t even trust myself for a while, I thought I’m going insane. But later, remembering all the things that happened while we were together,” Mark makes a little pause, the past tense not sitting well with him. “I realized it was not because of stupid experiments, but because I sincerely like you. And it’s real, when you want to see a certain person happy and safe, I think it’s real.”

Jaebum has to bite his cheek listening to all of this, because it’s everything he wanted to hear a few weeks ago, however, his defense mechanisms, trying to prevent him from getting hurt again, work in quite a terrible way. “That’s very nice of you.”

At this point, Mark is starting to slowly lose hope; Jaebum is known to be extremely stubborn, even if that stubbornness doesn’t do any good, but he still tries again and again. “I asked to proceed with the conference not because of Jinyoung, but because I wanted to see you.”

“Well, that’s an interesting way of meeting up.” Jaebum notes, but his voice is somehow brighter, finally not sounding like complete death, and that’s still a progress. “Listen, Mark. I know I acted like an asshole too, especially that night when I ran away without explaining anything, but this entire thing… It just hurts, you know. Imagine doubting yourself about something, then your significant other doubting you too about the same thing, it just messes with your head. And I don’t want to go back to this place again. We’re going to be thinking about that experiment for years on end, and it’s not going to bring any good.”

“Then let’s not think about it.” Mark naively offers, as if it’s so easy to forget half a year worth of events. “We don’t need to get stuck on the past, we can start things anew.” Jaebum doesn’t say anything to that, the habit of not getting back into the same waters if he felt like drowning at least once deeply ingrown in him. Mark, completely devastated and by that time already spitting desperate nonsense, gives his last shot. “I don’t hate cold hands.”

“What?”

Mark smiles, a little shyly, but Jaebum feels warm by that alone, thinking how much he actually missed this smile, but not showing it. “Before the conference, when I took your hand and put it in my pocket. It wasn’t because we simply needed to pretend and your hand was cold. I just… Wanted to hold your hand.” Jaebum looks a little stunned by this statement, still feeling Mark’s fingers on his palm even after hours. It felt warm, back then, like summer; Jaebum’s very own summer in Mark’s pocket, but the latter interrupts his thoughts. “You don’t have to answer now, just think about it, okay?”

The younger slightly nods and Mark gets up, ready to go; even though his heart is aching, because he expected Jaebum to feel the same way about trying again, he also feels weirdly calm – at least he didn’t chicken out the last second and actually tried to talk about things.

Mark is on his way out of the room, fingers already reaching for a door handle, when Jaebum’s voice catches him off guard. “What else did you lie about?”

“What do you mean?”

There’s a weird half-smile on Jaebum’s lips and Mark can’t tell if it’s sarcastic or not, when the younger continues. “Well, apparently you lied about the reason why you held my hand. What else did you lie about during our relationship?”

Mark doesn’t understand what’s it about, but he wants to be honest even about all the little things, though the situation now is more on the humorous side. “That time when one of your cats pissed on my shoes, probably because I was too clingy with you? It wasn’t _okay_ , I cursed them to hell in my mind. Also, yes, you do snore like a truck even if I say you don’t. And also, I really hate shirt of yours, the one with Snoop Dogg on it, it doesn’t look good and never will.”

By now Jaebum’s smile is definitely warm, his eyes creasing in that certain way that always happens when he’s happy and smiling genuinely. “Is that all, or do you have something else to confess?”

Mark pretends to be thinking very hard, but soon nods his head. “Yeah. Everything else I ever told was true.”

Jaebum stands up from his bed and walks up to him and Mark gets totally confused when the younger’s grin widens even more as he asks, “So you still declare hate to La La Land?”

Mark’s smile disappears for a while, because it’s an unfortunate reminder of that dreaded interview they did back in December, but the younger doesn’t look like he has something bad or unpleasant in mind, so Mark responds, “I will hate that movie forever.”

“There’s one thing you can’t deny about that movie though.” Jaebum says, laughing, for the first time in weeks.

“And what’s that?”

“They have some pretty nice kiss scenes.”

Jaebum doesn’t wait for Mark’s reaction, just drags him closer; and Mark doesn’t even need any explanations or obvious confirmations – Jaebum’s lips work as the best answer that yes, Jaebum has thought about all of it, for weeks on end actually, and the only conclusion that comes to his head is that even if he had the ability to turn back time and prevent this whole disaster, he wouldn’t – he doesn’t regret anything, as long as Mark is by his side.

A few moments later, Jaebum’s mom walks in on them kissing, and their cheeks flame up cherry red, but she just rolls her eyes (Mark now knows where his boyfriend got the habit from), tells that lunch is ready and leaves again. Both of the guys, continuing the interrupted activity, don’t feel really hungry though – there are whole two weeks of lack of closure to compensate.

 

“Remind me, why did I agree to do this?” Jaebum yawns out, as they’re lying down on bare grass in Mark’s backyard a few weeks later. “I’m still jet lagged, so can we just go to sleep instead of doing weird shit in the middle of the night?”

Mark only laughs at this, because his boyfriend is such a crybaby, even his parents were less worried about him going on a summer vacation overseas than Jaebum himself – he was constantly freaking out about not getting plane tickets on time, since they got this idea kind of late, then about not knowing what to pack in his suitcases, then about them possibly being late to the airport (and still getting there four hours before the flight), then about having to sit through a thirteen hour long flight; Mark honestly felt like he’s having a vacation with a three year old baby.

Among all the other things Jaebum also was terrified of meeting Mark’s family, but of course, it turned out great, with Mark’s dad discussing sports with him like they’ve been friends for years despite it being like five minutes since their introductions, and Mark’s mom forcing the poor guest to share all the Korean food secrets he knows (hint: not much of them, but he thinks he winged it quite well anyway). If not for the still apparent jet lag, Jaebum probably would be having a time of his life.

“Isn’t it cute though?” Mark notes, dragging Jaebum closer. “Looking at the stars in the night sky?”

Jaebum seems to have a different opinion on this though, mumbling, “We’re going to catch a cold, and also I looked at them enough while doing that stupid astronomy project, so thank you very much. I still haven’t forgiven Jinyoung for signing me up for that class and ditching me later.”

“Well you know what they say,” Mark laughs, Jaebum’s whining nothing but adorable in his eyes. “Some things have to fall apart so that better ones could fall together. By the way, Jinyoung called a while ago, while you were having a blast discussing seafood with my mom. According to the latest news, thanks to that experiment thing, he got an internship place in some fancy psychology center, but then again, he’s being tortured by Jackson’s niece, since they had some sort of a family reunion, and thanks to all the relative visiting, quote, they’re going to be stuck in Hong Kong for the rest of the eternity, it seems.”

Mark and Jaebum aren’t the only ones who opted out for overseas vacation this semester – Jackson also decided that it’s time to introduce his boyfriend to his family; or at least that’s what Jaebum understood when he finally stopped sulking and forgave Jinyoung for his messy assignments – and it _was_ hard to understand, since while they were on the phone, Jackson was arguing with Jinyoung at the same time, because the latter seemed to think he’s going to a fashion week, shamelessly packing three suitcases full of clothes.

However, up to this day, Jaebum still never misses a chance to roast his friend. “No pain, no gain.”

“You know,” Mark suddenly says and Jaebum feels his breath on his neck as they’re facing each other, heart skipping a beat – maybe because of that, or maybe because of the fact that they’re both lying on a cold wet grass at ungodly hours of the night watching stars together. Or maybe because Jaebum’s heart still jumps every time Mark is so close. “They say that if you look at the moon for too long, it might drive you insane.”

Jaebum only laughs at that; for a second it sounds ridiculous, but at the same moment he thinks that if this holds even a little bit of truth, he might as well call Mark Tuan his own personal moon.

And it’s completely his own choice, _their_ choice; so they roll with it, with some bumps and clashes from time to time, but with the same loving eyes whenever they make up, promising to stay like till the end of their days. Or till Mark throws away that Snoop Dogg shirt one day a few years later, because of Jaebum refusing to raise a dog in their apartment. It’s a full-blown war, especially when Jaebum declares he wants a fifth cat in compensation for the shirt, threatening to cancel their engagement if Mark brings any kind of dog home, even a plush one.

Mark does bring home a dog one evening, a real one, and Jaebum doesn’t get a fifth cat, but marriage plans are still definitely there, because they simply wouldn’t survive without each other. A few days later, Mark, coming back from work, sees Jaebum on the sofa in the living room playing with the dog as if it was his own baby, and smiles at that, watching the scene silently for a while, then greeting his soon-to-be husband with a kiss.

And that’s probably the happy ending they always wished for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow, we're finally here, after almost 3 months of being oblivious, being messy, being more messy and angry, and with a loss of a goldfish; it was definitely a ride.  
> i'd like to be very emo about this fic ending, but i'm down with a flu actually, and that sucked all the emotion feeling abilities out of me, so i'm probably gonna be very emo a few days later lol  
> what i truly wanted to say is, thank you for all you who read this story, pressed those kudos buttons, put up with all my typos (that i'll come back one day to fix, promise!) and commented on chapters, everything means so, so much to me and asjkdfhkjdsf this story probably would've ended after the first few chapters if not for your constant support. <3  
> okay, it seems like i'm getting all dramatic and emotional after all, so i'm just gonna stop right here. as always, comments are very welcomed, and... 
> 
> i might come back pretty soon, since markbum fic fest is still around with the deadlines approaching and my keyboard is crying from constant abuse :)))


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